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

[Alex DeMots]

An odd result of this ruling is that a corporation running an "issue ad" electioneering communication now has more stringent disclosure obligations than the same corporation running an express advocacy ad.  The latter would still report under the independent expenditure disclosure rules which, by statute, only require reporting contributions made "for the purpose of furthering an independent expenditure" - the same standard that this court just threw out for electioneering communications.

Alex DeMots
________________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Hasen [rhasen at law.uci.edu]
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 5:35 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 March 30, 2012 2:34 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=32446> 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
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