WASHINGTON – Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC), Issue One and five former lawmakers from both parties submitted comments urging the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to proceed with a rulemaking clarifying that the ban on personal use of campaign funds should apply to leadership PACs, in order to stop politicians from using the PACs as their personal slush funds. The organizations and former lawmakers filed the rulemaking petition in July.

Leadership PACs are supposed to be used so that officeholders can support other candidates’ campaigns to gain support for leadership positions. However, in the absence of clear rules from the FEC, only a minority of leadership PAC spending has gone toward contributions to other candidates and political committees, and instead, leadership PACs are commonly used as slush funds to subsidize politicians’ lifestyles.

“The FEC has the authority to issue rules cracking down on the misuse of leadership PAC funds, and the examples we’ve uncovered provide compelling arguments for it to do so,” said Brendan Fischer, director federal reform, CLC. “Officeholders using their leadership PAC accounts as personal slush funds gives big money even more influence over our democracy.”

According to CLC’s analysis of reports filed with the FEC since the rulemaking petition was filed, between April 1 and September 30, 2018 alone, leadership PACs spent at least $124,162 at the luxury Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, $160,809 at St. Regis resorts, $53,165 at Ritz Carlton hotels, $46,121 at Charlie Palmer Steak restaurant in D.C., and $19,760 at Disney properties.

Georgia Rep. Johnny Isakson used his leadership PAC to spend $59,145 at the Bandon Dunes golf club in Bandon, Oregon. Texas Rep. Pete Sessions used leadership PAC funds to spend $36,337 at a St. Regis resort in Deer Valley, Utah, and to spend $27,000 on an event at Dallas Cowboys stadium. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul used leadership PAC funds to spend more than $4,000 on meals, transportation, and sightseeing in London. And after Rep. Joe Crowley lost his primary in June 2018, he used his leadership PAC to spend $17,768 at the New York Racing Association horse racing track.

In July, CLC and Issue One released the report, “All Expenses Paid: How Leadership PACs Became Politicians’ Ticket to Luxury Living,” highlighting countless other stories of bipartisan abuses of leadership PACs. After the release of the report, the two organizations and a bipartisan group of former lawmakers filed a petition for rulemaking with the FEC asking the agency to clarify that the prohibition on the personal use of campaign funds also applies to a politician’s leadership PAC.

"While the FEC is burdened by partisan gridlock, prohibiting personal use of leadership PAC funds is a solution on which both parties agree. There's no reason for them to delay in initiating rulemaking to close this loophole," said Meredith McGehee, executive director, Issue One.

WASHINGTON – Today, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint against the super PAC MeToo Ohio for unlawfully coordinating with an Ohio U.S. Senate candidate’s campaign through the use of a common vendor and for using an evasive scheme to keep voters in the dark about its sources of funding.

On October 11, Jim Renacci’s campaign launched only its second ad of the entire general election — its first ad since June — and on the same day, a newly-formed super PAC called MeToo Ohio launched a new ad that was strikingly consistent in theme, tone, and style, including references to the same excerpted court documents and similar visuals.

Campaign finance law limits coordination between candidates and outside groups like MeToo Ohio. In order to preserve their independence, FEC rules limit how a vendor may work for both a candidate and an outside group supporting that candidate, yet both the super PAC and the Renacci campaign were paying the same vendor, a Florida-based company called Majority Strategies.

“It cannot be a coincidence that both the Renacci campaign and MeToo Ohio launched ads on the same day, hitting the same themes, using similar visuals, and with both the campaign and super PAC using the same political consulting firm,” said Brendan Fischer, director, federal reform program at CLC. “There is more than enough evidence here to prompt an FEC investigation into unlawful coordination.”

Additionally, MeToo Ohio’s financial backers remain largely undisclosed. The super PAC has reported raising far less than it has spent, and is claiming that Majority Strategies extended six figures in credit to produce and disseminate the pro-Renacci ads. (Moreover, its only reported contributor is a dark money entity that keeps its donors secret.)

The model for the evasive maneuver to keep voters in the dark that MeToo employed was pioneered by a Democratic super PAC in 2017. This scheme spurred a CLC complaint that is still pending before the FEC. Similarly, another super PAC backing Renacci, Ohio First PAC, adopted a similar scheme, which also prompted a CLC complaint.

PHOENIX - The Maricopa County Superior Court, upon agreement of the 15 county recorders, ordered all county recorders statewide to permit voters to “cure” their signature mismatch issue by Wednesday, November 14. The parties agreed that the “cure” period requires county recorders to provide notice to voters with supposed signature mismatches and allow them to confirm their signature.

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), ACLU, ACLU of Arizona, and Scharff PLC worked to reach this agreement on behalf of a coalition of Arizona groups: League of United Latin American Citizens-Arizona, Arizona Advocacy Network Foundation, League of Women Voters-Arizona, and All Voting is Local-Arizona.

The coalition released the following statement:

“Voters should not be disenfranchised by penmanship. We are pleased to announce that all Arizona voters are now guaranteed notice and an opportunity to confirm their signature before their ballot is rejected. Democracy works best when all citizen voices are heard. We look forward to ensuring this process continues past this election.”

Voters statewide can correct signature mismatch errors by contacting their recorder by Wednesday at 5pm. Voters who have cast early ballots should track the status of their early ballot online at this website.