Today, the Campaign Legal Center, joined by Democracy 21, filed comments criticizing the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for scheduling consideration of Advisory Opinion Request (AOR) 2012-32 at a meeting tomorrow, before the statutorily-required 10-day public comment period ends Friday. Furthermore, regarding the substance of the AOR, the Legal Center argues that the Commission has no authority to grant the Tea Party Leadership Fund (TPLF) request that the Commission declare a statute unconstitutional.

The AOR, filed by TPLF and federal candidates John Raese and Shawn Bielat, asks that the FEC cease enforcement of the statutory requirement that a committee be in existence at least six months in order to attain multicandidate political committee status and become eligible to make larger contributions to candidates. TPLF has already given each candidate $2,500, the maximum contribution allowed from standard political committees to candidates, but asks the FEC to waive the “six months in existence” requirement for multicandidate committee status, which would enable TPLF to contribute an additional $2,500 to each candidate.

“The request itself acknowledges that the statute preventing evasion of candidate contribution limits has been upheld by the Supreme Court, but nevertheless asks the Commission to exceed its authority by declaring the statute unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable,” said Paul S. Ryan, Campaign Legal Center Senior Counsel. “Formally considering this request before the end of the comment period shows a complete disrespect for the public comment process required by law and actually rendering an opinion within the comment period would in fact violate the law.”

The comments urged the Commission not only to reject the request but to prepare to defend the law in court against an expected challenge by the requestors.

To read the comments filed today by the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, click here.  

Today, a three-judge panel rejected the Republican National Committee’s challenge to the federal aggregate contribution limits in McCutcheon v. FEC. In so holding, the court highlighted an argument in the amici brief filed by the Campaign Legal Center, joined by Democracy 21, that the challenge, if successful, would create the potential for massive evasion of candidate contribution limits through the use of joint fundraising committees, party transfers and other means of circumvention.

“The court clearly recognized that siding with the plaintiffs would have made a mockery of candidate contribution limits by opening the door for widespread evasion,” said Tara Malloy, Legal Center Senior Counsel. “A successful challenge to these aggregate limits would have allowed individuals to contribute millions of dollars to candidates and party committees in a single election. Plaintiffs’ claim that this type of money would not buy influence and create at the very least the appearance of corruption does not pass the laugh test.”

The brief filed by Campaign Legal Center, with Democracy 21, emphasized that if the aggregate limits were invalidated, an individual could contribute $5,000 toward every single House and Senate race, $30,800 to each of a party’s three federal party committees, and $10,000 to each of a party’s fifty state committees for a total of $3.5 million in a two-year election cycle. The total would be further increased by as many $5,000 contributions to PACs as an individual chose to make. The three-judge panel recognized this very significant threat and cited it in its opinion.

The case, brought by plaintiffs Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee, challenges both the $70,800 aggregate limit on contributions to non-candidate committees and the $46,200 aggregate limit on contributions to candidate committees in a two-year election cycle.

To read the court opinion, click here.

To read the brief filed by the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, click here.

The Campaign Legal Center today joined Democracy 21 in sending a letter to the IRS further documenting that Crossroads GPS is a campaign operation and thus not entitled to tax-exempt status as a section 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization.  The letter attached transcripts of ads run by Crossroads GPS in 2012 targeting and praising presidential and congressional candidates, along with other information which refutes claims by Crossroads GPS that its ads are “issue ads,” not campaign ads.

“Crossroads GPS is operating as a shadow Republican National Committee, not a social welfare organization, and there are simply no two ways around the facts here,” said J. Gerald Hebert, Legal Center Executive Director. “A growing mountain of evidence makes laughable the claims that its work is for any sort of social good rather than purely and blatantly partisan political purposes. Even the group’s founder Karl Rove boasts publicly that Crossroads GPS ad buys of more than $50 million, attacking the President or boosting Mitt Romney, are a response to counter the advertising of the Obama campaign. Real and permanent harm is being done to our democracy each day this pathetic charade is allowed to continue. It is high time for the IRS to yank c4 status from Crossroads GPS and its political operation and force it to reveal its secret funders to voters.”

To read the full letter sent today to the IRS, click here.  

To read the transcripts, click here. 

Today, the Campaign Legal Center filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to defend Hawaii’s contractor contribution ban and disclosure regulations in Yamada v. Weaver.  Plaintiff-Appellant A-1 A-Lectrician, Inc. (A-1), a government contractor, seeks to overturn Hawaii’s pay-to-play law, as well as to invalidate a range of disclosure requirements applicable to independent spending in state elections. 

The Yamada case is part of a nationwide litigation offensive challenging a broad range of campaign finance laws at the federal, state and local levels.  But disclosure and pay-to-play laws similar to Hawaii’s have been upheld across the country as the courts have consistently recognized the important government interest in preventing political corruption or the appearance of such corruption. 

“A-1 is essentially asking the court to strike down Hawaii’s anti-corruption laws so it can contribute to officeholders while holding government contracts and can make independent expenditures while keeping the public in the dark about its activities,” said Tara Malloy, Legal Center Senior Counsel.  “The undisclosed political activities proposed by A-1 would undermine public trust in government and pose precisely the potential for corruption that led to the challenged laws’ enactment.”

To read the Campaign Legal Center’s brief, click here.

Today’s decision by the DC Court of Appeals is disappointing in that it will allow the continuing wholesale evasion of disclosure laws passed by Congress and upheld by the courts. At issue in this case is an FEC regulation that resulted in an almost complete failure by groups making “electioneering communications” to publicly disclose their contributors. 

The district court had found that the FEC had created a gaping loophole in the disclosure requirement when it issued a regulation in 2007 that required disclosure only of donors who had given “for the purpose of” funding “electioneering communications.”  Today’s decision sends the case back to the trial court, which had overturned the FEC regulation. The Court of Appeals has directed the lower court to provide the FEC an opportunity to revise the regulation in a rulemaking proceeding.  If the FEC fails to issue a new rule, then district court will decide whether the existing rule is arbitrary and capricious, as Representative Van Hollen has argued.

This order effectively means that there will be no disclosure of the donors funding the tens of millions of dollars being spent on political advertising by 501(c)(4) groups like Crossroads GPS and Priorities USA in the 2012 election cycle.  In the wake of this decision we are once again left with all of the unlimited spending unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, but with virtually none of the disclosure promised by the narrow five Justice majority in the case. 

The Campaign Legal Center is part of the legal team representing Rep. Van Hollen in this case, which is led by Roger Witten of WilmerHale.  The legal team also includes lawyers from WilmerHale, Democracy 21 and Public Citizen. 

To read the order issued today, click here.

Today, a federal court in Illinois accepted an amici brief by the Campaign Legal Center, Chicago Appleseed and the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform defending state contribution limits over the objections of Illinois Liberty PAC, the plaintiff in the case.  The Legal Center had originally submitted the brief last week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, with the assistance of local counsel David R. Melton and Thomas Rosenwein, in a challenge to Illinois’ contribution limits. 

“Illinois Liberty PAC is asking the court to ignore Supreme Court precedent and strike down contribution limits far higher than those previously upheld by the Supreme Court,” said Paul S. Ryan, Legal Center Senior Counsel.  “Contribution limits have repeatedly been upheld in the interest of preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption and it is ironic that this challenge is being brought against the laws of a state where the last two Governors have gone to jail for corruption.  The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that limits on contributions are constitutional as long as they are not so low as to prevent candidates and PACs from raising sufficient funds for effective advocacy.  There is no doubt that candidates and PACs can raise sufficient funds for effective advocacy under Illinois’ generous limits.”

Illinois Liberty PAC v. Madigan challenged the state’s $50,000 limit on PAC contributions to candidates, its $5,000 limit on contributions from individuals to candidates and its $10,000 limit on contributions from individuals to a PAC.  Plaintiffs claim these limits violate their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to free and freedom of association.  Federal PAC may accept only $5,000 from individuals a mere tenth of the Illinois cap and the Supreme Court has upheld Missouri state contribution caps ranging from $275 to $1,075.

To read the Campaign Legal Center’s brief accepted by the court today, click here.