Wealthy Liberals Give Heavily in Bid to Oust Bush in today’s Los Angeles Times contains a serious error. One paragraph reads: “Last week, FEC officials issued a draft advisory opinion that said, in part, that 527s could not spend money to promote or oppose a federal candidate. But the opinion is not binding on the commission.”
Of course, the draft did no such thing. It involved whether 527s should be treated as political committees, with contribution and source limits, as well as certain reporting requirements. Outside the context of corporations and unions, the Supreme Court has held it unconstitutional to limit spending supporting or opposing candidates for public office.
UPDATE: Marty Lederman writes:
- Actually, although it appears to be a common assumption that the draft AO addressed the question whether 527s are “political committees” — James’s Bopp’s Roll Call letter, for instance, makes the same assumption — in fact the draft did not decide, or address, any such thing.
Instead, the GC assumed — because ABC conceded the point — that the particular 527 in question was a political committee, subject to contribution and source limits and reporting requirements. What the draft AO would (principally) hold is that if a particular organization is a political committee, it then would follow (i) that “federal election activity” consisting of committee communications