Now the FPPC Acts Against Bustamante's Recall Spending

See here. Yesterday's Los Angeles Times also featured this article on a court striking down a county ban on intra-candidate campaign finance transfers.

"Big Money Still Rules U.S. Politics"

See this BBC report. Don't miss the last paragraph, on a very funny Club for Growth advertisement against Howard Dean. [I think I fit into each category besides driving a Volvo or having a body pierce.] (How is Club for Growth paying for this ad in the 30 days before the election? Are they unincorporated, or do they have a separate PAC?)

"President May Play Fundraiser Role, FEC Rules"

The Boston Globe offers this report, on the FEC's decision yesterday regarding solicitation rules for section 527s. (The actual advisory opinion should appear here eventually). The ruling itself, at least as characterized in the Globe story is not all that surprising, given the Supreme Court's endorsement in the McConnell decision of the FEC's earlier narrow interpretation of solicitation as "to ask" for contributions:

Nothing on the face of § 323(a) prohibits national party officers, whether acting in their official or individual capacities, from sitting down with state and local party committees or candidates to plan and advise how to raise and spend soft money. As long as the national party officer does not personally spend, receive, direct, or solicit soft money, § 323(a) permits a wide range of joint planning and electioneering activity. Intervenor-defendants, the principal drafters and proponents of the legislation, concede as much. Brief for Intervenor- Defendants Sen. John McCain et al. in No. 02-1674 et al., p. 22 ("BCRA leaves parties and candidates free to coordinate campaign plans and activities, political messages, and fundraising goals with one another"). The FEC's current definitions of § 323(a)'s terms are consistent with that view. See, e.g., 11 CFR § 300.2(m) (2002) (defining "solicit" as "to ask ... another person" (emphasis added)); § 300.2(n) (defining "direct" as "to ask a person who has expressed an intent to make a contribution ... to make that contribution ... including through a conduit or intermediary" (emphasis added)); § 300.2(c) (laying out the factors that determine whether an entity will be considered to be controlled by a national committee).

Power outage

Loyola's computer system suffered a power outage last night, meaning that any e-mails sent to me (or, for election law list members, sent to the Election Law list) did not go through. The system appears to be back up now.

The final typographical error in McConnell note 72

A week later (see here) and no one has found the last typographical error: It is "overrruled" (note the three "r"'s).

Substantively, I see a number of problems with this footnote. (As is often the case, some of the most important material in the campaign finance cases appears in the footnotes. ) More on the substantive point in the next few weeks.

-- 
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow
Loyola Law School
919 South Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org