[EL] Breaking News: major federal campaign finance disclosure decision

[Adam Bonin]

How is the FEC’s decision made regarding an appeal?  Is it a vote of the
six Commissioners?  Is it up to the General Counsel?  What happens if there
is a tie?



--Adam Bonin



From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Rick
Hasen
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 5:36 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] Breaking News: major federal campaign finance disclosure
decision




Breaking News: Court Decision Could Lead to More Disclosure of Money Funding
Election Ads <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=32446>


Posted on  <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=32446> March 30, 2012 2:34 pm by
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

In a 31-page opinion <http://t.co/F3kGNEki> , a federal district court in
Van Hollen v. FEC has just ruled that the FEC’s rules implementing an
important piece of McCain Feingold’s disclosure laws are improper.  Those
rules narrow the circumstances in which money funding “electioneering
communications” needs to be disclosed to the FEC.

While Super PACs are already must disclose their donors to run election ads,
this is not true as to most campaign ads run by 501c4s, c6′s like the
Chamber of Commerce and others.

It is not clear what will happen next.  Here are some possibilities.

1. The FEC will appeal, and the appellate court will reverse.

2. The FEC does not appeal, and tries very quickly to get new regulations
out.

3. The FEC does not appeal, and gets no new regulations out, leading to
questions, and possibly a request for an advisory opinion on what these
groups must now disclose as to their contibutors.  The FEC could well
deadlock on this question.

4. Groups will ignore the language of the statute, and reform groups will
file complaints at the FEC against them for failing to disclose their
contributors.

5. Someone will file a new suit in federal court claiming that the statute,
as now construed by the court, violates the First Amendment speech and
associational rights of contributors to these organizations.

Probably there are a few more possibilities.  Of course, this coming in the
throes of the election season makes this all the more dicey.


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--
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org

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