Recent Campaign Finance Decisions

In recent campaign finance decisions, a Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruling allows members of Congress to help associations raise general funds, the AFL-CIO wins a case protecting privacy of internal records used in an FEC investigation, and the Supreme Court rules rules that nonprofits cannot make direct contributions to federal campaigns.Last week the FEC unanimously approved Advisory Opinion 2003-5, a request by the National Association of Homebuilders asking that it be allowed to invite members of Congress to help raise funds at its events. The ruling places no dollar limit on the amount of fundraising Senators and Representatives can assist with, but bans fundraising for partisan purposes. If funds are sought for get-out-the-vote activities or other generic election-related efforts, the member must limit solicitations to individuals (no corporate contributions), and cannot amount to more than $20,000 per year. The text of the AO 2003-05 will be published on the FEC website [1] once final amendments are incorporated.

The FEC lost its appeal of a federal court ruling protecting thousands of pages of internal documents subpoenaed from the AFL-CIO during an investigation into possible illegal coordination with the Democratic Party. The court ruled that the files are constitutionally protected from public disclosure, overturning a long-standing FEC policy of making its investigation files public. However, the court said some information from investigations can be released, as long as it does not reveal information about internal strategies and political activities. The FEC may appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, or conduct a rulemaking to establish standards for determining what documents can be released once it concludes an investigation. The probe into the AFL-CIO was dropped in 2001 without penalties or further action.

The Supreme Court overturned a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Federal Election Commission v. Beaumont, U.S. No. 02-403, 6/16/03, finding the ban on corporate contributions to federal candidates in the Federal Election Campaign Act is constitutional as applied to incorporated nonprofit organizations. The case arose from a challenge by North Carolina Right to Life, a 501(c)(4) organization. It does not affect the IRS ban on partisan electioneering by public charities, exempt under Section 501(c)(3).