“Appeals Court Panel Overturns Van Hollen v. FEC, Reopening Massive Disclosure Loophole for 2016 Cycle “

CLC:

Today in Van Hollen v. FEC, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit once again upheld an FEC rule that severely limits federal disclosure requirements connected to “electioneering communications.” The appellate panel overturned a district court decision holding the rule “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law” for improperly narrowing the scope of the McCain-Feingold law’s disclosure requirements and allowing nonprofit 501(c)(4) advocacy groups, 501(c)(6) business associations, and others to spend millions on “electioneering communications” without disclosing their donors.

The opinion is pretty hostile to reform (a terrible panel draw at the DC Circuit). The opinion concludes:

As our discussion of the FEC’s rule has shown, the Supreme Court’s campaign finance jurisprudence subsists, for now, on a fragile arrangement that treats speech, a constitutional right, and transparency, an extra-constitutional value, as equivalents. But “the centre cannot hold.” William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming (1919). Until then, however, the FEC’s purpose requirement survives, and the judgment of the district court is therefore reversed.

I think van Hollen should try to go en banc on this one.

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