Pursuing a point mentioned in Allison's post regarding "separate 527 accounts" that are distinct from a self-described "federal committee", and based on the analysis in our article (referenced in some previous posts), my co-author Donald Tobin and I believe that it still would be necessary to analyze the activities of the "separate 527 account" to see whether they actually are non-federal in nature.  In our view, if it turned out that a major portion of the spending from that separate account were devoted to federal election activities, then the separate account would itself be a political committee under FECA and required to register as such.

Ned

At 10:06 AM 1/13/2004, AHayward@fec.gov wrote:

Since people are discussing the political committee issue, I thought it
might be helpful to point out a couple of things.  As indicated by the
advisory opinion request submitted by ABC, available here:
http://www.fec.gov/aos/aor2003-37.pdf.
that requestor maintains both a federal committee and a separate 527
account.  People interested in doublechecking can find the ABC political
committee on our Web page, and it has an ID number of C00390047.

So, the questions raised on the list regarding what a "pure" 527 entity may
do, may not be squarely raised by the request under consideration, where a
group maintins a federal committee as well as a separate "non-committee"
account.  Just thought I'd raise this, since this point seemed not to be
considered in some of the postings.

Happy new year, in any event,

Allison

Edward B. Foley
Robert M. Duncan/Jones Day Designated Professor of Law

Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University
e-mail: foley.33@osu.edu
phone: 614-292-4288
fax:     614-688-4202