Read the memorandum. … Continue reading
Category Archives: federal election commission
CPI: On Feb. 6, Center for Public Integrity senior political reporter Dave Levinthal filed a FOIA request seeking any email exchanges between a White House and FEC official. On May 8, the FEC informed Levinthal that it had located responsive … Continue reading
The remarks are here, and they are as unconvincing as they are mean-spirited. The attacks on Democratic Federal Election Commissioner Weintraub and (former) Commissioner Ravel have been relentless. Ravel couldn’t take it anymore, and now the heat gets turned up … Continue reading
Looks to be a great improvement. Kudos! … Continue reading
Open Secrets: Take the campaign’s September monthly report, covering Aug. 1-31, 2016. It has gone through four iterations. The first version, filed by the Sept. 20 deadline, was 25,625 pages long. But when it was amended for the first time … Continue reading
Statement. … Continue reading
Brad Smith in the Columbus Dispatch: But today the FEC is under attack from members of Congress whose misguided proposal to “reform” the agency could take us back to the Watergate era. A bill co-sponsored by Rep. Jim Renacci, an Ohio … Continue reading
Watchdog group Free Speech For People, joined by Harvard Law Professor John Coates, just filed an FEC complaint against Citgo and the Trump inaugural committee alleging that federal law prohibits “foreign nationals” from donating to presidential inaugural committees. Read the complaint. … Continue reading
The Supreme Court has long recognized that a group facing a realistic threat of harassment for revealing its donors or vendors has a First Amendment right to exemption from generally applicable campaign finance laws. The case establishing this principle, Brown … Continue reading
Release: A federal district court today refused to throw out a lawsuit Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 filed against the Federal Election Commission (FEC). CLC and D21 filed the suit in the United States District Court for the District … Continue reading
Bloomberg BNA: A Federal Election Commission rule on “independent expenditures,” which has allowed millions of dollars’ worth of campaign ads to air without disclosure of the donors funding them, can be challenged in court, a federal judge ruled. The FEC … Continue reading
LAT: A member of the Federal Election Commission has accused President Trump of threatening democracy with his unproven allegations of voter fraud and asked him to show evidence if he has any. Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic commissioner at the agency, … Continue reading
CPI reports. … Continue reading
Interesting Brad Smith at NRO: If career staffers at the FEC are now attempting to sabotage the work of the commissioners — who are, by law, entrusted with running the agency — that’s frightening. The establishment of a Twitter group … Continue reading
Bauer blogs. … Continue reading
Bloomberg BNA: The Federal Election Commission won’t appeal a federal judge’s ruling that challenged the FEC rules for presidential debates. The decision announced by the FEC March 8 means the FEC will have to respond to the ruling by Judge … Continue reading
Illuminating video interview with FEC Commissioner Lee Goodman. I earlier interviewed the commissioner for the ELB Podcast. … Continue reading
Letter: This bill would make our elections less safe, less secure, and less fair, and could reduce the faith of the American people in their elections’ results. In these unsettling times, surely public officials in all branches and at all … Continue reading
Eliza Newlin Carney for TAP. … Continue reading
I got a lot of pushback for making that suggestion, as in this NYT piece. People said I was giving him ideas, but I have no doubt this occurred to them before I mentioned it. But now HuffPo reports this … Continue reading
Cause of Action responds to Bob Bauer’s post on FEC Commissioner Weintraub. … Continue reading
Andy Kroll for Mother Jones: A strange thing happened last week at the Federal Election Commission, the nation’s watchdog for campaigns and elections. On Friday evening, the FEC’s three Republican members quietly released a slew of missing legal memos related … Continue reading
Bloomberg BNA: A federal judge has refused to order the Federal Election Commission to disclose information about or take further enforcement action against a nonprofit group that spent millions of dollars on ads opposing House Democrats in the 2010 elections. … Continue reading
Bauer: Are Weintraub’s comments directly and squarely within the jurisdiction of the Commission, such that she can take some action in response to the President’s failure to produce the requested evidence? No, but then again she rightly says that as … Continue reading
Bloomberg BNA: “I admit when I came here [to the FEC], I was naive,” Ravel said in the phone interview Feb. 21. In her first year at the FEC, Ravel said, she “crossed party lines” and voted with the three … Continue reading
CNN: A member of the Federal Election Commission was defiant Tuesday after a nonprofit group said her request that President Donald Trump provide proof of voter fraud merited an investigation into whether her comments were inappropriate. Ellen Weintraub’s remarks were … Continue reading
Dave Levinthal for CPI: Conceivably, Trump could nominate anyone he wants to the FEC, including Libertarians or independents that share his political sensibilities. Federal law only mandates that the FEC feature no more than three commissioners from any one political … Continue reading
Departing FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel has penned this oped for the NYT. … Continue reading
Bauer: Rick Hasen suggests that Mr. Trump could now break the agency deadlock and add a libertarian voice to the agency, creating a majority for active deregulation without violating the rule against one party holding more than half the seats. … Continue reading
As we have long been expecting, Federal Election Commissioner Ann Ravel has announced her resignation from the Federal Election Commission, effective March 1. For the last decade or more, beginning with the FEC tenure of Don McGahn (now the White House … Continue reading
BAN: On February 1, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan issued a 28-page opinion in Level the Playing Field v Federal Election Commission, 1:15cv-1397, D.C. She ruled that the FEC clearly did not look at the evidence presented by … Continue reading
CPI: Federal Election Commission leaders — dogged by abysmal staff morale and a top manager improperly obtaining employees’ confidential critiques — are considering changes to how the agency operates in a bid to restore staff trust. Chief among them: the … Continue reading
Bloomberg BNA: Proposals to write new Federal Election Commission rules aimed at preventing foreign campaign money from influencing U.S. elections led to a deadlock between Democratic and Republican commissioners at the FEC’s first meeting in 2017. FEC Democrats said the … Continue reading
As noted. … Continue reading
Yup, the problem is not what’s illegal but what’s legal. It is fine to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars using joint fundraising committees despite a $2,700 individual contribution limit of money going directly to candidate campaigns. … Continue reading
Brad Smith letter to the editor responding to Ellen Weintraub oped: Mr. McGahn was one of the most principled people to serve on the FEC. Indisputably, he was influential and consequential. Ms. Weintraub complained that the FEC is dysfunctional. Yet … Continue reading
Can you blame her? … Continue reading
Important CPI report. … Continue reading
Bauer: To put the point in mildest terms, Ellen Weintraub and Don McGahn do not get along. When they served together on the Federal Election Commission, their mutual hostility was well enough known, and their time apart since Mr. McGahn … Continue reading
Ellen Weintraub WaPo oped: The White House counsel operates out of the public eye but has the president’s ear. In the Trump administration, with the unprecedented multiplicity of conflict-of-interest challenges facing the businessman-president, the job will take on added importance. … Continue reading
Bob Lenhard in The Hill. … Continue reading
Bloomberg BNA ($): “President-elect Donald Trump, battling criticism about potential conflicts of interest even before he takes office, is set to be represented in the White House by a tough Washington lawyer whose fight against strict regulation of politics was … Continue reading
CNN: The Federal Election Commission is asking the campaign of Donald Trump to correct more than 1,000 errors in its latest financial filing. The FEC determined that the Trump campaign accepted close to 1,100 donations, which amounted to roughly $1.3 … Continue reading
Bloomberg BNA: The Federal Election Commission dismissed on a deadlocked, party-line vote allegations that Jon Keyser, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Colorado illegally solicited $3 million in unlimited “soft money” contributions to aid his 2016 campaign. Documents released by … Continue reading
CPI: A Federal Election Commission manager allegedly duped the agency’s inspector general into releasing hundreds of confidential employee comments that has lambasted poor leadership there as part of a morale study. Four current FEC staffers and one former employee with … Continue reading
Story Commissioner Ravel response. … Continue reading
FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub for WaPo. … Continue reading
WaPo: A bipartisan group of congressional members and candidates is filing a federal suit Friday against the Federal Election Commission, seeking to force the agency to act on a complaint it brought against 10 super PACs in July. The maneuver … Continue reading
Bloomberg BNA: Thee Federal Election Commission won’t appeal a federal court decision reviving an enforcement complaint against conservative nonprofit groups that refused to disclose their donors. Officials said the FEC commissioners deadlocked 3-3 along party lines in a vote behind … Continue reading
Bloomberg BNA: Former Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell illegally used campaign funds to pay her rent and utilities in 2010 and 2011, a federal court in Wilmington, Del., ruled (Federal Election Commission v. O’Donnell, D. Del., No. 15-17, memorandum opinion9/21/16). … Continue reading