WASHINGTON – This presidential election, corporations have threatened to pull financial support for the national conventions because they do not want to be associated with the views of presidential candidate Donald Trump. But given the longstanding federal ban on corporate support for nominating conventions, why are corporations in the business of paying for our political conventions at all?

That’s the subject of the Campaign Legal Center’s new report, Funding the Presidential Nominating Conventions: How a Trickle of Private Money Turned into a Flood.

“The role of corporate money has become so obscene that in the 2016 election, a corporation not financially supporting political conventions is apparently a newsworthy case of ‘man bites dog,’” said Larry Noble, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center and co-author of the report. “Over the years, the Federal Election Commission has shredded the laws that explicitly ban corporate spending on conventions. Now, corporate interests and wealthy individuals gain political access and influence over government officials by spending tens of millions of dollars to fund nominating conventions. The public is rightfully discouraged and disgusted by how they are being shut out of their democracy. Public funding of the conventions was the right idea that was undermined by the FEC and eventually Congress.”

CLC’s report outlines how, over the years, the FEC has allowed corporations to funnel an increasing amount of money to the party conventions through “host committees,” which are supposed to promote the city and local commerce, not fund the conventions. This year, both parties expect to raise at least $60 million each for their “host committees,” largely from corporate sources, and to spend that money on the conventions.

 “Because the conventions are a political party’s single largest public gathering of local, state and federal elected officials and party leaders, the conventions are stocked ponds for corporate interests fishing for influence at every level of government,” said Brendan Fischer, associate counsel for the Campaign Legal Center and co-author of the report. “Yet the FEC has continued to insist that corporations donate to conventions for commercial rather than political reasons, despite all evidence to the contrary.”

CLC’s report highlights:

• How the corrupting potential of corporate spending on the conventions led Congress to ban it and create the post-Watergate public financing system in the 1970s 
• How the FEC began to chip away at laws prohibiting corporate and private funding of the conventions by opening “host committee” loopholes
• How corporations engage in “relationship building” at the conventions
• How the biggest convention sponsors are often those companies with pressing issues before the federal government. 

WASHINGTON – Priorities USA Action, a super PAC backing Hillary Clinton, accepted $200,000 in contributions from a government contractor in violation of federal law.

While Priorities USA – following press coverage of the illegal contribution – returned the money to Suffolk Construction Company, it still failed to do so within 30 days of learning of the possible violation, as the law requires. The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 today filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission demanding the agency investigate and impose appropriate sanctions on both Priorities USA and Suffolk Construction Company.  

“Priorities USA could have easily determined from the outset that Suffolk Construction Company was a major federal contractor, and certainly has known since April, when reporters first raised the issue,” said Brendan Fischer, associate counsel with the Campaign Legal Center. “Yet, the super PAC didn’t return the contribution when they learned it was illegal – they only did so when it became politically inconvenient.” 

Suffolk Construction is a major federal contractor, having received $168.8 million in contracts since 2008, and its donations put it among Priorities USA’s top donors in 2015. The law is clear that federal contractors are prohibited from making contributions to a political committee while negotiating or performing a federal contract, and a political committee is similarly prohibited from soliciting and receiving contributions from a federal contractor.

The law also makes clear that political committees must examine the legality of contributions when they are received -- and when later faced with new evidence that a contribution came from a prohibited source like a federal contractor, must refund the contribution within 30 days.

Priorities USA knew about the company’s status as a contractor at least as early as April 2016, when the Center for Public Integrity asked the super PAC for comment – and then published a story – about Priorities USA receiving contributions from the contractor. Yet the contributions were not returned until July, following a Hill story raising the same issue but which attracted wider attention. 

FEC Urged to Stop Foreign Money from Infiltrating Our Presidential Election 

WASHINGTON - Donald J. Trump's presidential campaign committee is violating black-letter federal law by sending campaign fundraising emails to foreign nationals - including foreign politicians - in at least Iceland, Scotland, Australia and England. The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 today will file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission highlighting this violation and demanding the agency send a clear message that foreign money is not allowed in U.S. elections.
 
"Donald Trump should have known better," said Paul S. Ryan, CLC deputy executive director. "It is a no-brainer that it violates the law to send fundraising emails to members of a foreign government on their official foreign government email accounts, and yet, that's exactly what Trump has done repeatedly. The FEC's forum last week highlighted how foreign corporate money could infiltrate U.S. elections, but Trump's fundraising antics show that the FEC must also monitor candidates directly soliciting foreign money.
 
"If the FEC fails to take action on our complaint, it could send a message that Trump and other candidates have the greenlight to fundraise overseas,” Ryan added. 
 
"This is a strange and unique development that we have not seen before in campaign fundraising," said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer. "The FEC needs to investigate how many of these illegal solicitations were sent, to whom they were sent, whether any illegal foreign contributions have been received and, if so, whether the contributions have been returned."
 
Our complaint details how in June 2016, dozens of prominent Icelandic, Scottish, Australian and British politicians received Trump fundraising emails on their official government email accounts, which end in ".is" or ".uk" and clearly indicate that the email recipient lives in Iceland or the United Kingdom. Trump continued to send the fundraising emails even after foreign press began raising questions about the solicitations.
 
For example, just last week, while Trump was promoting his golf resort in Scotland, Scottish members of parliament received emails urging them to 'make America great again' by donating to his campaign."

“Emailing fundraising requests to foreign addresses should have been a big red flag for the Trump campaign," said Brendan Fischer, associate counsel for CLC, "but the campaign apparently didn’t conduct the minimal diligence the law requires to avoid running afoul of the foreign solicitation ban.”

 Federal law provides that a candidate violates the foreign national fundraising ban if they make a solicitation despite being aware of facts that would lead a reasonable person "to inquire whether the source of the funds solicited . is a foreign national" or "to conclude that there is a substantial probability that the source of the funds solicited . is a foreign national."  

U.S. Supreme Court Denies Cert Petition in Delaware Strong Families v. Denn

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court today denied a petition for certiorari to hear an appeal in Delaware Strong Families v. Denn, letting stand a 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision upholding the Delaware Elections Disclosure Act. Delaware’s law was proposed and signed by Governor Jack Markell in 2012 to improve transparency of outside spending in state elections.

“Delaware voters are the real winners today,” said Megan McAllen, associate counsel for the Campaign Legal Center. “This ruling ensures that they will continue to have access to the information they need to make informed decisions on Election Day. We’re also extremely pleased to see the Court refuse yet another challenge to its longstanding recognition that transparency in elections is a vital governmental interest, and that voters deserve to know the identities of the outside interests vying for their votes. Since Citizens United, the Court has been presented with many opportunities to reexamine its strong support for disclosure laws, and has turned down each one.”

Lawyers from the law firm WilmerHale and the Campaign Legal Center represented the Respondents, Delaware’s Attorney General and Commissioner of Elections.