A federal appellate court has reversed a district court’s electioneering reporting decision, sending the issue back to the FEC.

The significance of today’s decision, pending further possible rule changes or court decisions, is that political contributors giving to an organization making an electioneering communication will not have to be disclosed to the FEC unless the donor specifically earmarks his or her contributions to fund electioneering communications.

This was the rule from 2007 until this spring when a district court ruled that all contributors giving over $1,000, regardless of whether they gave for the specific purpose of electioneering communications, had to be disclosed to the FEC.

In the initial lawsuit, Van Hollen v. FEC, the plaintiff,  U.S. Representative Van Hollen, claimed the FEC regulation 11 C.F.R. §104.20(c)(9), which requires disclosure only of those making contributions over $1,000 to an entity for the purpose of furthering electioneering communications, contradicts the statute requiring disclosure of all donors making contributions over $1,000.

In the spring, a U.S. district court agreed and declared 11 C.F.R. §104.20(c)(9) invalid and vacated the regulation. The court reinstated the FEC’s prior regulation, which was promulgated on December 17, 2002 and was in effect until December 25, 2007. The FEC had formally reiterated the district court’s requirement on July 27, 2012, retroactively applying the disclosure of donors to March 30, 2012.

Today, in Center for Individual Freedom v. Van Hollen, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed Van Hollen v. FEC, vacated the district court’s prior judgment, and remanded the case to the district court. Presently, under the jurisdiction of the district court, the FEC must pursue rulemaking to address the issues brought by the lawsuit or defend 11 C.F.R. §104.20(c)(9) in court against the parties bringing the action.

This is a signature issue for Representative Van Hollen who will probably continue to vigorously litigate this issue.

The FEC has not publicly declared its next course of action.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) issued an advisory opinion offering limited guidance on what type of solicitations for political contributions are permissible and what type of advertisements qualify as expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate.

In Advisory Opinion 2012-27, the FEC found two of four proposed donation requests permissible. The Commission also concluded three of seven proposed advertisements did not expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified federal candidate.

The remaining advertising and donation requests were not decided by the FEC because it lacked the required four affirmative votes for agreement.

“FEC says it will enforce nonprofit disclosure rules” by Dan Eggen in The Washington Post.

“FEC Releases Disclosure Rules” by Elahe Izadi in the National Journal’s Influence Alley.

“Outside groups may have to disclose donors” by Robin Bravender and Dave Levinthal in Politico.

Here is the Federal Election Commission’s news release.

Campaign Finance

“FEC: Campaigns can raise money via text message” by Dave Levinthal in Politico.

“FEC sues ex-Sen. Craig over use of campaign cash” by The Associated Press on CBSNews.com.

“NJ considers changes to election finance rules” by The Associated Press in the Bergen Record.

Government Ethics

Georgia: “Squirrely Ethics in Georgia, Former Exec Says” by Iulia Filip in the Courthouse News Service.

New Mexico: “New Mexico agency compiled email list for governor’s PAC” by Steve Terrell in the Santa Fe New Mexican.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) unanimously approved five legislative recommendations to be submitted to the U.S. Congress.

One proposed change would require all Senate candidates and their committees to use electronic filing.

The FEC also recommends the Commission have permanent authority to assess administrative fines, Congress expand the prohibitions on fraudulent misrepresentation of campaign authority, and the personal use restrictions to all political committees be extended. Additionally, the FEC is advocating Congress amend the law to allow the FEC to create Senior Executive Service positions under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 in line with other comparable federal agencies.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) approved several advisory opinions on a variety of issues.

In AO 2012-12, the FEC allowed a corporation to solicit contributions from its non-corporate franchisees and licensees’ executive and administrative personnel. The FEC found the personnel were part of Dunkin Brands, Inc. restricted class because of the degree of control it maintained on the franchisees and licensees.

In another opinion, the FEC concluded an association of physician-owned hospitals are not federal contractors although they provided services to patients in government-sponsored healthcare programs such as Medicaid. Therefore, the association is not prohibited from making contributions to independent expenditure-only political committees.

Additionally, the FEC found a New Hampshire campaign finance statute requiring disclaimers for telephone surveys was preempted by federal statutes and FEC regulations because the calls in question were only related to federal candidates.

The FEC also let stand the $46,200 aggregate limit for contributions to federal candidates over a request to contribute amounts over this limit.

The FEC press release concerning these and other decisions can be found here.

A Federal District Court denied a preliminary injunction request demanding the Federal Election Commission (FEC) not enforce a law prohibiting individuals with federal contracts from making political contributions to federal candidates or political parties.

In Wagner v. Federal Election Commission, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the Court rejected challenges to the constitutionality of section 441c of Title 2 of the U.S. Code, which prohibits any vendors with contracts with the federal government from making such contributions.

The case, brought by the ACLU, asked the Court to declare the law unconstitutional as applied to individuals who have personal services contracts with federal agencies. Because federal workers who are not contractors may make federal political contributions, while contractors performing the same work may not, the suit argued section 441c violates both the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and the First Amendment.

In denying the preliminary injunction request, the Court concluded the plaintiffs do not have a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims.

A US District Court has declared a Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulation regarding disclosure for “electioneering communications” invalid.

The US District Court for the District of Columbia found FEC regulation 11 CFR §104.20(c)(9), which requires disclosure only of those making contributions over $1,000 to an entity for the purpose of furthering electioneering communications, contradicts the statute which requires disclosure of all donors making contributions over $1,000.

Concluding the FEC does not have the authority to narrow the disclosure requirement required by law, the Court declared the regulation invalid by granting the plaintiff, U.S. Representative Chris Van Hollen, summary judgment.

The FEC had argued for the need for the regulation after FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (WRTL), which concluded corporations and labor organizations were permitted to make expenditures for electioneering communications that did not constitute express advocacy or its functional equivalent. The commission believed requiring only disclosure of funds earmarked for the purpose of furthering electioneering communications appropriately provided the public with adequate disclosure information.

Addressing this argument in the decision, District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote, “The [FEC] cannot unilaterally decide to take on a quintessentially legislative function; if sound policy suggests that the statute needs tailoring in the wake of WRTL or Citizens United, it is up to Congress to do it.”

Our Highlighted Site of the Week is the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) new Campaign Finance Disclosure Portal. The site was announced just yesterday and offers powerful resources allowing the visitor to access campaign finance data sets and perform advanced segmentation. The types of information included are independent expenditures; bundled contributions; candidate and committee summaries; receipts, disbursements, and a cash summary for PACs and National Party committees; leadership PAC and sponsor data; and much more.

According to the FEC’s news release: “The Commission announced the release of a new campaign finance disclosure portal that will simplify access to the wide range of data available on the agency’s website. The disclosure portal provides a single point of entry to federal campaign finance data.”

Information can be accessed through interactive maps, easily readable charts, or by searching with a name or keyword. Data sets can also be downloaded as XSD, XML, or CSV files in order to perform your own analysis or data mashup.

The FEC promises the Campaign Finance Disclosure Portal will be regularly updated throughout the election cycle. With both the site and its Disclosure Data Blog, you can subscribe to its feed via RSS so that you can keep up with any updates.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

An advisory opinion request seeking to end the current aggregate limit on the contributions an individual may make to federal candidates has been made to the Federal Election Commission.

The request, made on behalf of Shaun McCutcheon, seeks to allow him to make political contributions to several federal candidates that would exceed the two-year aggregate limit currently set at $46,200 as provided in 2 U.S.C §441a(a)(3)(A).

The primary argument in the advisory opinion request argues the limit is unconstitutional because it violates a citizen’s right to speak and to associate with not just any candidate, but every candidate of his choosing.

If the FEC grants the request, Mr. McCutcheon plans to contribute amounts of $2,500 and $1,776 to 26 federal candidates

The Times Developer Network is now offering data from reports received by the Federal Election Commission through its Campaign Finance API (application programming interface). What was once a set of reports updated weekly, or in some cases daily, is now updated every 15 minutes.

You can find campaign finance information for the presidential and congressional candidates, PACs and super PACs, electronic filings by date and type, independent expenditures, and electioneering communications.

For the full story, be sure to read “Campaign Finance Data in Real Time” by Derek Willis in The New York Times.

You’ll be interested to also see “Campaign finance updates in real time? There’s an API for that” by Meranda Watling in 10,000 Words.

U.S. Congressman Chris Van Hollen has introduced a campaign finance bill in the House called DISCLOSE 2012 Act.

Like the similarly entitled bill introduced and defeated in 2010, House Resolution 4010, the Disclosure of Information on Spending on Campaigns Leads to Open and Secure Elections Act of 2012, aims to increase the reporting requirements of political expenditures and contributions by corporations and other outside groups.

Corporations, unions, and other groups, will be required to report certain campaign-related activity to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), to disclose their campaign-related expenditures to their shareholders and members, and to make their political spending available to the public, through a hyper-link to the FEC, on their websites.

In his press release, Congressman Van Hollen states, “I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this legislation – if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear from the DISCLOSE 2012 Act.”

Additionally, the bill also requires lobbyists to disclose their political expenditures in their lobbying disclosure reports in conjunction with the report of their lobbying activities.

Our Highlighted Site of the Week is the Federal Election Commission’s 2012 Campaign Finance Maps page. You can play with interactive maps of the states for information about the 2012 Presidential Candidates, or the House and Senate elections.

With just a mouse-over you can view the amount of contributions by state, and with just a bit more work you can search the amount received by each candidate, and the amount given by a donor’s name.

For the presidential races, you can drill down in each state for data down to the zip code level. For the candidates in the congressional elections, you can view the campaign finance information by the congressional district of each state.

According to their announcement, you can now view the following on your mobile phone:

• presidential candidate summary data
• a calendar with dates for commission meetings, reporting deadlines, conferences, advisory opinions, and litigation
• an audio archive of recent hearings
• the FEC YouTube channel
• The FEC Twitter feed

FEC Chair Cynthia Bauerly said, “I am pleased to announce the launch of the FEC’s new mobile interface. … I greatly appreciate the efforts of the agency staff who worked on this project, which will further the FEC’s mission of disclosing campaign finance data.”

Here is the FEC’s press release about the new pages.