Nate:

As I understand the recent BNA article by Foley and Tobin,
which I believe is available on Rick Hasen's blog,
there is a strong legal argument to be made -- consistent with
footnote comments in the plurality opinion that speak
to the meaning of "political committee" -- to the effect:
1) that a 527 commmittee is a political committee, and
2) if it engages primarily in federal election activity,
as defined by BCRA (including registration, GOTV with an
electoral purpose), it would be a federal political committee,
subject to the same contribution limits that apply to a PAC.
This is one of the major underlying issues in the pending ABC
advisory opinion.  Under this interpretation, the character
of the committee, and not each activity, would dictate
the contribution limit.  Hence, no consensus on item #1
until the Advisory Opinion for 527s that engage primarily
in federal activities.

Michael Malbin
Campaign Finance Institute



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
[mailto:owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu]On Behalf Of Nathaniel
Persily
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 4:00 PM
To: election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: getting around the BCRA


I have called several list members who have given me conflicting answers
to the following factual questions about the state of the law post-BCRA,
so I thought I might try to see what the consensus here is on the truth
of the following propositions:

1. Nothing prohibits a corporation from giving treasury funds to a  527
organization.

2.  BCRA probably prohibits a 527 from spending corporate treasury money
on some or all federal election activities, but FEC will decide this
issue in a coming AO. See
http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/press-990.html

The next few points are more controversial:

3. The operative phrase limiting 527 expenditures of corporate money is
"in connection with any federal election" 2 U.S.C. § 441b(b)(2).  That
phrase is not the same as federal election activity defined elsewhere in
the Act.

4. A 527 can spend all the corporate treasury money it wants on state
election activity including voter registration, get out the vote drives
to elect specific candidates, and maybe issue ads outside of the 60 day
window. [This one I am least sure of, and I suspect there is
disagreement among listmembers]

5. A 527 can use corporate treasury money to fund non-partisan get out
the vote drives that are focused on, say, rural voters, African American
voters, Christian voters (you get the picture).

6. Nothing prevents a 527 from accepting unlimited individual
contributions (e.g., Soros) to be spent specifically on federal election
activity.

Thanks in advance to those of you more familiar with the nitty gritty of
the statute.



--
Nathaniel Persily
Assistant Professor
University of Pennsylvania Law School
3400 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(o) 215-898-0167
(f) 215-573-2025
npersily@law.upenn.edu
http://persily.pennlaw.net/