"Campaign Finance: The Sequel"

The Wall Street Journal offers this report, with the following subhead: "Election Panel Tackles Job Of Regulating Groups Spawned In McCain-Feingold Law's Wake." Thanks to Steven Sholk for the link.

Bob Bauer has provided more analysis of the proposed rulemaking here.

As I understand the timing of events from what I've heard, the FEC will vote Thursday on whether to send out the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. At that point, it will likely be inundated with comments. A hearing is then set for April 14-15, with a final rule due May 13 (with a 30 day period for Congress to act before the law can go into effect).

This means that the earliest that the rules can go into effect is mid-June, assuming (a big assumption) that a majority of the commissioners can actually agree on rules to vote for. By mid-June, a lot of the action will be over that the Democratic-leaning 527s care about. I assume that Bush will have spent much of his $100 million+ beating up on John Kerry (or whoever else looks likely to get the nomination), and that the 527s will spend whatever amount they have (but likely to be considerably less than $100 million) beating up on Bush. Once the Democratic convention begins over the summer, Kerry gets a large pot of public financing money to use.

So how much will the FEC rulemaking matter for this presidential election? Maybe not as much as initially appeared.
UPDATE: Beth Kingsley sent the following reactions to the election-law listserv:

I believe that's 30 legislative days before FEC regs can take effect, which bear little resemblance to "days" in the lives of ordinary humans. So technically the effective date might be much later. Though with pending final regs., and depending on what they say, some organizations may feel the need to conform their behavior to the new rules that are about to kick in. In fact, as I understand it, some of the transition rules provided in the draft require repayment of nonfederal funds with federal funds after an organization triggers PAC status. So rules that go into effect late summer may reach back and have an effect on spending that occured in the spring. And of course, there are some people arguing that new rules aren't needed and these new 527s are already breaking the law as it stands.

Also, my assumption had been that Bush would do most of his "primary" spending in July/August, after the Dem. and before the Republican convention. That way he gets to spend huge amounts that Kerry (presumably Kerry) can only counter by using up his general election pot of money, which Bush won't have to touch until some time in September. As a result, that may be the period when 527 spending on the other side may be most needed. In any case, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Another reader writes:

You might think about the observation you made just now on the timing of the rule i.e. too late to do much harm. It is one I've heard from several people, but it doesn't square with what the "shadow" party groups (I hate that term, but everyone is using it) say they want to do. Many of the groups talk alot about their plans for the "ground war" - Voter ID, registration and GOTV, as much or more than they talk about advertising. Those are things groups do in the Fall, not so much in June.

Thanks for writing!

Posted by Rick Hasen at March 2, 2004 09:34 AM