Thursday, September 18, 2008

FEC Holds Hearing on Bundling Rule

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) held a hearing on how to implement a new requirement that all federal candidates, parties and political committees report any registered lobbyists or lobbying entities who engage in bundling of campaign contributions. The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act required the FEC to create a rule for the disclosure of bundled lobbyist contributions worth $15,000 or more.

The FEC heard from two panels at the public hearing. The FEC must decide some questions that will determine how much bundling activity will be disclosed. According to BNA Money and Politics ($$) those issues are;

• which contributions are properly credited to a fund-raising effort by a lobbyist;
• how to report money raised at a fund-raising event hosted by multiple lobbyists; and
• whether money raised by an agent of a lobbying organization, who is not a lobbyist, should be reported.

RollCall ($$) reported that "the discussion dealt with how campaigns credit lobbyists for campaign contributions and whether lobbyists and fundraisers would try to circumvent the law by increasing the number of lobbyists sponsoring an event — to ensure that the event would not trigger the $15,000 threshold." And "some advocated for the broadest possible definition of assigning credit for lobbyist bundling."

The new bundling rule will not likely be finished in time to effect the upcoming election. More information on the hearing and witness testimony is available here.