FEC Complaint Filed Against National Republican Congressional Committee for Illegal Websites

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Democracy 21 joined with the Campaign Legal Center in filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) urging the Commission to conclude that the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has violated federal law by including the names of Democratic candidates in the titles of at least 19 NRCC special project websites without the website titles clearly and unambiguously showing opposition to the named candidates as required by federal law.

Late last year, the NRCC began setting up websites with URLs and headlines that imply support for named Democratic candidates for Congress and with prominent “donate” buttons.  In less prominent text, the websites indicate opposition to the named candidates and note that the websites are paid for by the NRCC. Any money donated on the site goes to the NRCC.

Our groups have counted 19 such websites so far, with URLs such as AnnieKusterForCongress.com and JohnLewis4Congress.com.  Annie Kuster, John Lewis and the other candidates named in NRCC websites listed in our complaint are Democratic candidates for Congress this year.  The headlines at the top of these pages read “Annie Kuster For Congress,” “John Lewis For Congress,” etc.

According to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer:

The websites set up by the NRCC are clearly misleading and appear to be nothing less than a financial scam designed to confuse viewers of the websites and to raise money from donors who may well think they are contributing to support the Democratic candidates named in the websites.

Importantly, the NRCC websites fail to comply with FEC regulations which are intended to protect voters and contributors from such scams. The FEC has a responsibility to ensure that the campaign finance laws are not being violated in order to carry out a financial scam on voters and donors

Federal law prohibits any non-candidate political committee, such as the NRCC, from “includ[ing] the name of any candidate in its name.”  FEC regulations make clear that this restriction on the use of candidate names applies not only to the official name of the committee, but also to “any name under which a committee conducts activities,” including websites, unless the title of the website “clearly and unambiguously shows opposition to the named candidate.” 

The NRCC websites listed in the complaint fail to clearly show opposition to the named candidates.