BNA reports on the draft advisory opinion on next week’s agenda: “A draft advisory opinion ruling released by the Federal Election Commission would reject a proposal to allow national officials to help so-called Super PACs raise unlimited contributions….However, FEC officials said June 24 that they expect a competing draft to be released before the FEC meets to consider the pending advisory opinion on Super PAC fund-raising. The yet-unreleased draft may conclude that there should be no restrictions on federal and party officials’ fund-raising for these PACs.”

Let’s be clear: that competing proposal would get party leaders back into raising soft money.  If the FEC deadlocks again, and this leads to a green light to such a turn of events, it would be a very bad development in my opinion—reversing the other pillar of McCain-Feingold.  It is not clear to me whether there could be preemptive court action if, as I expect could well happen, the FEC deadlocks on this issue on party lines.