[EL] Super-PAC coordination with Political Party Committees

[David Keating]

Not legal.  While the RNC and LP each had similar lawsuits seeking to establish super pacs, both parties withdrew from the litigation.

The SpeechNow.org case’s facts confirmed the group would not coordinate with either candidates or parties.

http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation/speechnow_memo_findings.pdf   See page 6, #6.

Also from the FEC brochure on coordination:
http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/indexp.shtml

When an individual or political committee pays for a communication that is coordinated with a candidate or party committee, the communication is considered an in-kind contribution to that candidate or party committee and is subject to the limits, prohibitions and reporting requirements of the federal campaign finance law.

In general, a payment for a communication is "coordinated" if it is made in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate, a candidate’s authorized committee or their agents, or a political party committee or its agents. 11 CFR 109.21. To be an "agent" of a candidate, candidate’s committee or political party committee for the purposes of determining whether a communication is coordinated, a person must have actual authorization, either express or implied, from a specific principal to engage in specific activities, and then engage in those activities on behalf of that specific principal. Such activities would also result in a coordinated communication if carried out directly by the candidate, authorized committee staff or a political party official. 11 CFR 109.3(a) and (b).

David
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From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Tyler Culberson
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 4:43 PM
To: law-election at UCI.edu
Subject: [EL] Super-PAC coordination with Political Party Committees

Question(s) to the listserv:

Do any of you have an opinion or a sense of the legality of Super-PAC/Political Party Committee coordination? This is something that remains quite unclear to me since Citizens United and Speech Now.

While working at the FEC we were given a briefing on the foreseen impact of Citizens United and Speech Now to the regulatory and enforcement responsibilities of the agency. I had asked for clarification on Super PAC/Party coordination, but was provided none - presumptively because it is not clear in the regulations or the rulings and I am unaware of any official position the Commission has taken on the issue.

It does not appear that this has become an issue in federal elections, yet. But, one could imagine that party committees struggling to raise money may be interested in co-opting and coordinating with a lucrative Super-PAC at some point. My guess would be we'll either see this occur in this general election or the next.

-Tyler
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