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.

The FEC investigated the now-defunct nonprofit Commission on Hope Growth and Opportunity (CHGO) for more than five years, but the case was dismissed after the six FEC commissioners ultimately deadlocked in a party-line vote on possible enforcement action. Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in a Feb. 22 ruling that he would not reverse the FEC’s dismissal of the CHGO matter.

Although the FEC “strong grounds to prosecute” CHGO for campaign finance violations, the judge said, the agency had discretion to drop the case because it dragged on for so long that a statute of limitations had lapsed and the nonprofit group had ceased operating.