Watchdogs File Comments in Post-McCutcheon FEC Rulemaking

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Democracy 21 joined with the Campaign Legal Center yesterday in filing rulemaking comments urging the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to follow the Supreme Court’s recommendations in McCutcheon v. FEC to prevent corruption of candidates and circumvention of the base contribution limits after the court struck down the aggregate cap on contributions.  The watchdog groups pressed the FEC to strengthen and enforce regulations cited by the Court as preventing corruption, covering disclosure, earmarking, affiliation and joint fundraising committees, and also to close regulatory loopholes regarding coordination and the new party accounts created by the omnibus appropriations bill passed last month.

According to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer:

The FEC regulations that govern disclosure of contributions by outside spending groups do not comply with the campaign finance laws. These rules have resulted in almost no contribution disclosure by 501(c) nonprofit groups spending money in federal elections.

The FEC regulations that prohibit coordination between outside spending groups and candidates do not comply with the campaign finance laws. These rules  have allowed candidates and outside groups to coordinate as they so choose and to ignore the statutory prohibition. There have been almost no cases brought to enforce the statutory prohibition on coordination.

Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center in our comments call on the FEC to issue new regulations to properly implement, and not eviscerate, the statutory provisions requiring disclosure and prohibiting coordination.

In December, Congress passed an omnibus appropriations bill that included a completely unrelated amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act to raise the contribution limit to party committees exponentially for specific activities, but its language is broad and ripe for abuse.  The outstanding coordination issues relate to extensive cooperation between candidates and outside groups that is allowed by the current ineffective coordination regulations—at odds with recent Supreme Court decisions promising that outside group spending would be totally independent of candidates.

The comments filed by the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 offer very specific recommendations to the FEC on effective implementation of new and existing regulations in order to prevent widespread circumvention of the base contribution limits and to properly regulate outside groups and party committee spending in keeping with the laws passed by Congress.

Both the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 requested an opportunity to testify at the FEC’s February 11 hearing on the matter.