Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched a rulemaking to expand online political file requirements to cable satellite and radio.  The action came in response to a petition filed last week by the Campaign Legal Center, the Sunlight Foundation, and Common Cause.  The FCC notice requests public comment on the organizations’ petition to extend cable and satellite providers the requirement to post their public files online that now cover broadcasters.  In recent years, the amount of political advertising on these other outlets has jumped significantly and is expected to grow even more.

“The Commission in many cases sits on rulemaking petitions for years, so we are very pleased to see them move so quickly on our petition,” said Meredith McGehee, Policy Director of the Campaign Legal Center.  “Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on political ads every election cycle seeking to influence cable and satellite viewers and radio listeners, and the stations already ready maintain these files.  Making them available online is not a hardship, especially in light of the economic windfall the stations gain from airing the ads.  We have been pushing for years for greater disclosure and were gratified when the Commission moved forward this past July to require all broadcast licensees to put their public file on the FCC website.  Broadcasters’ claims that such requirements were burdensome were not accompanied by proof since these days TV stations conduct all of their transactions on computers.  This should be a no-brainer."

“We are hopeful that this extension to other forms of television will not be a heavy lift, so the FCC can then turn to getting the uploaded information into a user-friendly database to replace the clumsy PDFs the stations now use.”

To view the petition for rulemaking filed by the Campaign Legal Center, the Sunlight Foundation, and Common Cause, click here. 

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied the effort by the organization True the Vote (“TTV”) to intervene in the Texas voter photo ID case.  True the Vote sought to intervene to defend the discriminatory law.  The trial court had denied intervention last year and True the Vote appealed the denial to the Fifth Circuit. The Campaign Legal Center serves as counsel to the lead plaintiffs challenging the law in the district court and had filed an opposition in the Fifth Circuit to stay the voter ID lawsuit.

“We are relieved the court denied True the Vote’s belated attempt to join the State of Texas in defending a law serving no purpose other than to suppress the ability of black and Latino registered voters to cast their ballots,” said J. Gerald Hebert, Executive Director of The Campaign Legal Center.  “True the Vote fell far short of establishing the right to intervene in the case and we are pleased the court of appeals correctly denied the organization’s effort to participate.”

On December 11, 2013, TTV was denied intervention as a defendant in the consolidated lawsuits (Veasey v. Perry, No. 2:13-cv-193) challenging Texas’s new voter identification law.  The district court found that TTV did not have a particularized interest that the litigation threatens to impair or impede, and that TTV’s generalized interests in the issues will be adequately represented by the State of Texas. That decision was affirmed today by the court of appeals.

The complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center in the case claims that the voter photo ID law (SB 14) violates the 1st, 14th, 15th and 24th Amendments to the Constitution, as well as Section 2 of Voting Rights Act.  Trial is scheduled to begin September 2 in Corpus Christi.  Several challenges (including one brought by the United States) have been brought against the Texas law, which is the one of the most restrictive laws in the nation.  The cases have been consolidated in the Southern District of Texas in Corpus Christi. 

The Campaign Legal Center attorneys are part of the legal team that includes Chad Dunn and K. Scott Brazil (Brazil & Dunn), Neil G. Baron, David Richards (Richards, Rodriguez & Skeith), Armand Derfner (Derfner, Altman & Wilborn), Luis Roberto Vera, Jr. (LULAC).

To read today's Fifth Circuit opinion, click here.

To read the Campaign Legal Center’s opposition to TTV’s motion, click here.

Late yesterday, reform groups asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to declare unlawful the dismissal of a complaint against the secretive political spending group Crossroads Grassroots Political Strategies (GPS) by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The motion for summary judgment stems from the FEC’s failure to investigate Crossroads GPS for not registering as a political committee. The FEC Office of General Counsel had strongly recommended that the agency investigate in the face of evidence against the group but the Commission deadlocked along party lines leading to the dismissal of the complaint.

 
The lawsuit, Public Citizen v. FEC, was brought by the parties to the 2010 complaint: Public Citizen; Craig Holman, campaign finance expert for Public Citizen; ProtectOurElections.org; and Kevin Zeese, an attorney for ProtectOurElections.org. The Campaign Legal Center and Public Citizen are handling the legal work on the case as co-counsel for the parties.

The groups contend that Crossroads GPS – an organization created by Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie to influence the 2010 midterm elections – fits the legal definition of a political committee: any group that receives or spends more than $1,000 during a calendar year to influence elections and whose major purpose is federal campaign activity. Political committees must disclose information about their donors and expenditures. The FEC’s refusal to investigate Crossroads GPS for failing to register as a political committee has allowed the organization to continue to keep its donors secret for the last three election cycles.

“Courts are the only recourse when three Commissioners ignore the laws passed by Congress, ignore the FEC’s own longstanding policies and ignore the call for an investigation by their own General Counsel,” said Paul S. Ryan, Campaign Legal Center Senior Counsel. “As a result of that FEC deadlock the seemingly clear cut violations of the law by Crossroads GPS have continued unabated and other ‘dark money’ groups have been emboldened to follow suit resulting in a massive spike in undisclosed political spending in our elections. We hope that the court sees fit to grant this motion and ensure that every member of the Commission fulfils the duties of their office and enforces the laws passed by Congress.”

“We hope the court will be able to see what the three Commissioners who blocked the FEC from proceeding claimed they could not: Crossroads GPS was formed to pour money into our elections, and that is exactly what it did in the 2010 elections,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “The Commissioners’ failure to perceive that reality is a classic case of failing to see that the emperor has no clothes.”

In 2007, the FEC published a detailed policy laying out how the agency determines an organization’s major purpose. The policy provides that the FEC will consider public and non-public statements by the organization and the proportion of spending on “federal election activity,” which includes spending on express advocacy (messages calling for a vote for or against a candidate) as well as electioneering communications and other materials that discuss the merits of a candidate immediately before an election.

Evidence indicates that Crossroads GPS operates as a political committee. Between June and December 2010, Crossroads GPS spent $20.8 million on federal campaign activity – more than half of what Crossroads GPS reported spending the entire year, the FEC’s general counsel determined.

And Crossroads GPS’ co-founder, the Republican strategist Karl Rove, boasted on FOX News that Crossroads GPS was an avenue for donors who had maxed out to GOP political committees. In October 2010, the group announced a $4.2 million ad buy targeting eight heavily contested U.S. Senate races. Three-quarters of the ad buy was paid for with money from undisclosed donors.

“Disclosure of who is paying for political ads is an important part of campaign finance law and an essential consideration for voters,” said Zeese of ProtectOurElections.org. “Disclosure of who is paying for political ads is an important part of campaign finance law and an essential consideration for voters. The FEC however - because of obstruction by three partisan commissioners - has allowed such expenditures to be done in secret thereby undermining the law and our democracy. Our case gives the court the opportunity to correct that injustice.”

Political committees are required by law to disclose the identities of their donors.  In an attempt to avoid disclosing its donors, Crossroads GPS has applied for status as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit social welfare group.

To read the motion for summary judgment filed yesterday with the court, click here.
 
To read the original FEC complaint, click here.
 
To read the statement by the Democratic Commissioners of the FEC, click here.
 
To read the FEC General Counsel’s recommendation, click here.
 

Today the Campaign Legal Center strongly warned against the growing threat of Dark Money to our democracy and provided testimony to the Senate Rules Committee that the DISCLOSE ACT would provide the disclosure called for by the U.S. Supreme Court in a number of recent campaign finance rulings.  In a statement submitted into the record of today’s hearing “The DISCLOSE Act (S.2516) and the Need for Expanded Disclosure of Funds Raised and Spent to Influence Federal Elections” Legal Center President Trevor Potter and Executive Director J. Gerald Hebert condemned the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) “blatant override of Congressional intent” in the rules issued by the Commission to implement the disclosure requirements of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

Potter and Hebert explained that the FEC precipitated the current crises, undermining Congressional efforts to increase disclosure of the funders of outside spending:

The DISCLOSE Act is of particular urgency due to the mushrooming of outside spending in elections combined with the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) ongoing efforts to narrow the coverage of the disclosure rules. The FEC’s disclosure regulations—which are clearly contrary to the legislative intent of Congress—and the Commission’s failure to enforce the law as intended have largely created this problem. The good news is that this is a problem that can be fixed legislatively, and in fact was addressed by Congress when it passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) in 2002. The “electioneering communications” disclosure provision of BCRA, which the Supreme Court upheld and is still on the books, says that any “person,” including corporations and labor unions, that spends more than $10,000 on TV and radio ads mentioning candidates in close proximity to elections must file a report with the FEC disclosing the names and addresses of all contributors who contributed $1,000 or more to the person making the ad buy.     

The statement urges the Rules Committee to expeditiously send the DISCLOSE Act to the full Senate and to vigorously oppose efforts to weaken the legislation in order to bring disclosure regulations in line with current law and in keeping with U.S. Supreme Court rulings calling for complete disclosure of political spending in order to safeguard the integrity of the nation’s elections. 

To read the full statement, click here.

Today, the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and the Sunlight Foundation filed complaints at the Federal Communications Commission against two television stations that incorrectly identified front groups as the “true sponsors” of political advertisements, when they were in fact paid for by one individual. The complainants are represented by the Institute for Public Representation of Georgetown University Law Center.

In the complaint against WJLA, the Allbritton-owned ABC affiliate in Washington D.C., the groups cited two ads that aired in September and October 2013 that failed to properly identify environmentalist and former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer as the true sponsor. Instead, the ads were attributed to “NextGen Climate Action Committee.” At the time, NextGen was a super PAC founded and funded solely by Steyer. 

The groups also filed a complaint against KGW in Portland, OR. In May 2014, KGW ran multiple ads attacking Senate candidate Monica Wehby and supporting Jason Conger. In FCC filings, the sponsor behind the ads is identified as the “American Principles Fund,” but, as the complaint details, hedge fund manager Sean Fieler is the true sponsor. Fieler is the founder of the American Principles Fund and the super PAC received nearly all of its funding from him. 

The Communications Act and the FCC’s sponsorship identification rules require broadcasters to go beyond simply naming the entity that paid for an ad. In this case, both super PACs act essentially as personal advertising arms for the individuals behind them, and the stations failed to fully and fairly inform the public about who was attempting to influence them.  Under the Communications Act, broadcasters are required to “exercise reasonable diligence” to obtain the information needed for proper sponsorship identification. 

“The public has a right to know who is trying to buy their influence through political ads,” said Sean Vitka, Sunlight Foundation federal policy manager. “When political agendas are hidden behind seemingly innocuous super PACs, it’s the legal responsibility of the broadcasters to make sure that the public is properly informed. The FCC’s disclosure rules are one of the only ways to track this kind of activity, and the only way to track political ad spending in real time. We hope the FCC enforces its policies.”

“The stations are only too happy to cash the checks for these ads but cannot be bothered to actually comply with the law requiring them to make public the funders behind those ads,” said Meredith McGehee, Campaign Legal Center policy director. “Viewers deserve to know who is bankrolling the endless ads seeking to influence the outcome of elections and the law requires it.   In case after case the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld disclosure laws and recognized the compelling public interest in voters knowing the source of the money behind the ads seeking to influence their votes.” 

"Dark Money groups have polluted the airwaves the law for far too long. Transparency is essential,” said Todd O'Boyle, program director for media and democracy at Common Cause. "It's high time for the Commission to do its job and make political ad disclosure a reality."

WJLA is currently owned by Allbritton Communications Company.  The FCC is considering an application for sale of the station to Sinclair Broadcast Group, but the complaint is directed to Allbritton.

KGW is licensed to Sander Media, LLC.

To view the complaint against WJLA, click here.

To view the complaint against KGW, click here.

Today, the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and the Sunlight Foundation filed complaints at the Federal Communications Commission against two television stations that incorrectly identified front groups as the “true sponsors” of political advertisements, when they were in fact paid for by one individual. The complainants are represented by the Institute for Public Representation of Georgetown University Law Center.

In the complaint against WJLA, the Allbritton-owned ABC affiliate in Washington D.C., the groups cited two ads that aired in September and October 2013 that failed to properly identify environmentalist and former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer as the true sponsor. Instead, the ads were attributed to “NextGen Climate Action Committee.” At the time, NextGen was a super PAC founded and funded solely by Steyer. 

The groups also filed a complaint against KGW in Portland, OR. In May 2014, KGW ran multiple ads attacking Senate candidate Monica Wehby and supporting Jason Conger. In FCC filings, the sponsor behind the ads is identified as the “American Principles Fund,” but, as the complaint details, hedge fund manager Sean Fieler is the true sponsor. Fieler is the founder of the American Principles Fund and the super PAC received nearly all of its funding from him. 

The Communications Act and the FCC’s sponsorship identification rules require broadcasters to go beyond simply naming the entity that paid for an ad. In this case, both super PACs act essentially as personal advertising arms for the individuals behind them, and the stations failed to fully and fairly inform the public about who was attempting to influence them.  Under the Communications Act, broadcasters are required to “exercise reasonable diligence” to obtain the information needed for proper sponsorship identification. 

“The public has a right to know who is trying to buy their influence through political ads,” said Sean Vitka, Sunlight Foundation federal policy manager. “When political agendas are hidden behind seemingly innocuous super PACs, it’s the legal responsibility of the broadcasters to make sure that the public is properly informed. The FCC’s disclosure rules are one of the only ways to track this kind of activity, and the only way to track political ad spending in real time. We hope the FCC enforces its policies.”

“The stations are only too happy to cash the checks for these ads but cannot be bothered to actually comply with the law requiring them to make public the funders behind those ads,” said Meredith McGehee, Campaign Legal Center policy director. “Viewers deserve to know who is bankrolling the endless ads seeking to influence the outcome of elections and the law requires it.   In case after case the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld disclosure laws and recognized the compelling public interest in voters knowing the source of the money behind the ads seeking to influence their votes.” 

"Dark Money groups have polluted the airwaves the law for far too long. Transparency is essential,” said Todd O'Boyle, program director for media and democracy at Common Cause. "It's high time for the Commission to do its job and make political ad disclosure a reality."

WJLA is currently owned by Allbritton Communications Company.  The FCC is considering an application for sale of the station to Sinclair Broadcast Group, but the complaint is directed to Allbritton.