Outside Groups
News & Commentary | Archive "Outside Groups" is a term for organizations other than party committees, registered federal political committees, or candidate committees. BCRA seeks to limit the ability of these groups to introduce soft money into the federal electoral process. It prohibits corporations and unions from naming a federal candidate in ads run in the candidate's state or district within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. An additional and complex provision is designed to prevent outside groups from "coordinating" with candidates their communications to the public, such as mail, phone or broadcast communications. Answering Hasen and CCP, on ALPRick Hasen wants to hear from me about the reason why the Obama campaign has not renewed its complaint against the American Leadership Project, a 527 that drew a complaint when spending on behalf of Hillary Clinton and that is now on the loose, so far unchallenged, against John McCain. The Center for Competitive Politics started this, raising the question, and it uses the occasion to make its case that the law is used—abused—as an “electoral sword.”
(9/5/08) Read More Allison Hayward Tries to ExplainHer Defense of the AIP, in the Weekly Standard Allison Hayward knows a good deal about election law, and she writes with verve and wit, making good entertainment of what is often the dreariest subjects. In the Weekly Standard, she turns these talents to the task of defending the American Issues Project and its financier Harold Simmons.
(9/3/08) Read More Re-thinking How, or in What Ways, McCain-Feingold Affected Corporate Support for 527sSusan Clark Muntean’s intriguing study of corporate support for 527s should provoke reconsideration of one common view of the impact of McCain-Feingold. "Corporate Contributions After the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act," 7 Election Law Journal 233 (2008). Her task has been to evaluate whether, as routinely claimed, corporate soft money declined after BCRA, much of it disappearing altogether when parties could not accept it and not simply reappearing on the ledgers of 527s or other "outside groups." Muntean concludes that this judgment holds for only certain types of corporations—the largest publicly traded, "Berle-Means" corporations in which are found the separation of management from widely distributed ownership. Corporations under the control of a principal owner accelerated their giving, she demonstrates: the top fifty corporate donors, dominated in number by principal-owner controlled firms, more than quadrupled their donations to 527s after BCRA passed. Id. at 235.
(8/7/08) Read More Tea Leaves, at the Federal Election CommissionLast year the Federal Election Commission heard from Holland and Knight, a limited liability law partnership organized under Florida law, that asked whether, having elected tax treatment as a corporation under federal tax law, it could operate its political committee as a corporate PAC and pay without limit for its PAC administrative expenses. The Commission could not then come up with the four votes needed for a decision. In July, the new Commission did decide the case. It voted, 5-1, that state law, not federal tax law, controlled, and that Holland Knight was not a corporation, and its political committee not a corporate PAC, for federal campaign finance purposes. Under Florida law, the firm remained a partnership, though it is taxed as a corporation in states other than Florida and Massachusetts.
(8/6/08) Read More On the EMILY's List CaseThe EMILY’s List case so long in limbo before Judge Kollar-Kotelly, and now decided, is a useful study in the logic and routine of federal campaign finance regulation after McCain-Feingold. The Judge turned away EMILY’s List’s argument that its activities were unconstitutionally constrained by "allocation" and other regulations adopted by the FEC in the wake of McConnell. This was not, though, one of those cases resolved against the background of deep suspicion about a Committee and its activities. A leading PAC over two decades, with an unquestioned mission of supporting women candidates for office at all levels, EMILY’s List was not hatched to test the limits of federal law, and it was not before the court with a faked "nonfederal" purpose that would enable it to take in soft money for federal elections.
(8/5/08) Read More Also...The "Real Truth" about Jim Bopp’s New Case 7/31/08 The FEC Is Back—With an Interesting First Test 7/24/08 SpeechNow Put Off for a While: a Damage Report 7/2/08 The Courts and the FEC: Sad Lessons To Be Drawn from the Shays Case 6/16/08 More on McCain and His "Outside Group" Policy 6/3/08 “Major Purpose” As A Major Issue in Coming Campaign Finance Battles 5/12/08 Nonprofit Asks Supreme Court To Review "Support or Oppose" Standard 3/12/08 SpeechNow’s Challenge and Its Opportunity 3/7/08 527 Follies 2/22/08 SpeechNow, in CourtNow 2/15/08 |