[EL] contractors and super pacs

[Craig Holman]

Hello Rick:


Every indication at this point is that the federal pay-to-play law applies to super PACs, though this question has yet to be litigated. The federal law explicitly prohibits federal contractors from making campaign contributions to federal candidates, parties and PACs, and super PACs are federal PACs.


This was the basis of a "recent" FEC complaint filed by Public Citizen, in which Chevron made a $2.5 million contribution to Boehner's super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund. The FEC dismissed the complaint on the grounds offered by Chevron:  that the campaign contribution to the super PAC was made by Chevron Corporation, while the federal contract was held by Chevron USA, a different division of the same corporate family. (This rationale of allowing one division of a company make campaign contributions while another division of the same corporate family holds the contracts is currently the subject of an FEC rulemaking petition).


The issue of whether the federal pay-to-play law applies to super PACs was not questioned in that decision, and individual commissioners have on occasion said that they believe the law does indeed apply to super PACs. 


Public Citizen contends that the law does indeed apply to super PACs. It makes sense. Not only is the law clear that it does apply to all PACs, the very close association and coordination of super PACs with candidates and parties warrants such an interpretation. Such an interpretation is not only appropriate for the federal pay-to-play law, but also for SEC rule 206(4)-5. The SEC has not yet made it clear that the SEC pay-to-play rule applies to super PACs, but the agency has routinely applied the pay-to-play rule in other situations where it deemed appropriate to close evasion of the pay-to-play rule.




Craig Holman, Ph.D.
Government Affairs Lobbyist
Public Citizen
215 Pennsylvania Avenue SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
T-(202) 454-5182
C-(202) 905-7413
F-(202) 547-7392
Holman at aol.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu>
To: law-election <law-election at UCI.edu>
Sent: Tue, Jul 7, 2015 12:52 pm
Subject: [EL] contractors and super pacs


Can someone tell me the status of the issue at the FEC whether federal

contractors may make contributions to Super PACs supporting federal

candidates?  I recall some action about this, but do not remember where

things stand.
Thanks.

-- 
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://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org

_______________________________________________
Law-election
mailing
list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20150707/bd586014/attachment.html>