"FEC OKs New Twist on Bundling Donations"

A.P. offers this report. Those following the "WE LEAD" issue before the Commission will be interested to learn that the commission voted 5-0 to approve their proposed bundling plan.

UPDATE: A knowledgeable reader sends along the following observations about today's meeting:

On WeLead: The final version was "delayed" if you want to call it that because the Commission did not approve the original OGC draft, which did not allow WeLead to pursue their proposal. Instead of the redraft circulating on a "tally" vote - i.e. with no public circulation, comment, or hearing, several commissioners had it rescheduled for public hearing. That would have happened whether or not Mason had put forward his amendment regarding how solicitation costs should be treated. His language, which was adopted, makes the straightforward point that, if the activity is independent, the solicitation costs are not contributions to the recipient candidate, but if the activity is coordinated, they are. I am interested in the fact that some third parties are criticizing this opinion, yet even after it was renoticed for a second hearing, we did not receive comment on it.

On Voinovich: The Commission did decide that the post-BCRA restrictions (see 2 USC 439a as amended) on use of candidate campaign funds did not permit Voinovich to use his US senate committee's funds to repay contributions to his gubernatorial committee. He had already repaid contributions from this source to his Senate committee. The AP story seemed a little confusing to me on this point. Also, even when the "any lawful purpose" language was in the old statute, that didn't mean campaign funds could be used for anything - there existed then, as today, a prohibition on "personal use."

On phone banks: this issue in this rulemaking is not who PAYS for the phone bank, but how party payments for phone banks are ALLOCATED. The commission approved at 50-50 split when the message is akin to "Vote for President Jones and the entire Libertarian Team" with 50% of the expenditure allocated to the party's coordinated limit for the presidential campaign.

The Commission also certified the Missouri Green Party as a state party committee. This was approved without debate.

Thanks for writing!

Posted by Rick Hasen at November 6, 2003 01:10 PM