A full complement of commissioners presided over the Federal Election Commission's open meeting on Thursday, marking the first time the regulatory body was fully staffed since Cynthia Bauerly stepped down in February. Lee E. Goodman, a lawyer with a background in campaign finance, and Ann Ravel, the former head of California's electoral watchdog took their seats on the bench for the first time.
Continue readingClosure of disclosure: No FEC filings due during shutdown
In shutting down the government, the nation's lawmakers also guaranteed a little less surveillance on themselves.
Among the many agencies that will not be open for business as long as the political and budgetary stalemate continues is the Federal Election Commission, an agency created after the Watergate scandal. The idea was to reduce the possibilities of corruption in politics by making campaign donations more transparent.
For the foreseeable future at least, those donations will be taking place under a cloak of darkness.
Because the FEC's electronic filing system won't necessarily be available during the shutdown, the public will not be able to view the latest filings and filers will be free to ignore existing deadlines. Candidates will have until 24 hours after the government reopens to file campaign finance reports due during the shutdown. That could mean an extension for just about every candidate for federal office--there are two major filing deadlines fall this month. It also raises the possibility that some voters may not know the whole story about who's trying to influence their vote until after they go to the polls.
Tempers flare as FEC postpones votes on contentious issues yet again
In what might almost be dubbed a summer repeat of its last meeting, the Federal Election Commission sidestepped consideration of a pair of controversial issues while ruling on relatively minor ones.
Votes on whether non-federally regulated contributions (i.e. 'soft money') can be used by an organization affiliated with the Democratic Governors' Association (DGA) and what rules will govern the way FEC staff conduct investigations will be delayed until a future episode.
As previously reported by Sunlight, the DGA is seeking the FEC's approval of its plans to create a separate 527 organization, Jobs & Opportunity, that could raise funds ...
Continue readingFEC puts off enforcement fight
The Federal Election Commission demonstrated a rare burst of productivity Thursday, when commissioners settled one major issue, investigated another, but put off a brewing fight over how it conducts investigations for another day.
The Republican and Democratic commissioners had no trouble giving the green light to requests brought by two separate committees to treat same-sex married donors the same as opposite-sex donors. Married donors can jointly contribute $10,400 to a candidate, even if only spouse earns income. The move was expected after the Supreme Court's reversal of the Defense of Marriage Act.
The commissioners were also unified in ...
Continue readingNew FEC nominees stress compromise but also nod to their camps
After a Senate committee hearing questioning the two new nominees to the Federal Election Commission Wednesday, both nominees emphasized their willingness to compromise with the other, which would be a far cry from the partisan rancor that has increased at the commission in recent years.
Continue readingCan two new FEC nominees fix a ‘mired’ agency?
Five years after the Senate last approved new members to the nation's election watchdog agency, President Barack Obama's two nominees face their first test Wednesday at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. And while no opposition has surfaced so far, there remain plenty of questions about whether new members can change an agency that's taking on one-tenth the number of enforcement actions that it did a decade ago.
Obama's two picks for the Federal Election Commission are California regulator Ann Ravel and Virginia lawyer Lee Goodman. Ravel would fill an open Democratic ...
Continue readingWhat Charles G. Koch can teach us about campaign finance data
On May 13, I wrote up an analysis of campaign finance data that asked “Did almost 600 donors break campaign finance law in 2012?” Truth is, I wasn’t sure. The bulk data made it appear that way, but as I noted at the outset, “our most troubling finding may be just how difficult it is determine with legal certainty exactly how many campaign scofflaws there are, or how much over the limit they gave.” In the past week, I have received one e-mail and one letter proving that point. Both came from some rather prominent individuals. First the e-mail, which was sent on behalf of Charles G. Koch: “The analysis asserts that Charles Koch exceeded the 2011-2012 biennial overall contribution limits and the PAC and party contribution limits,” wrote Missy Cohlmia, Director, Corporate Communication, Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC. “We have checked our records at length and request that Sunlight Foundation take Mr. Koch off this list.”
Continue readingReporter’s notebook: How we came up with that campaign finance maze
If it makes you all feel any better, campaign finance is hard for us too.
At the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group, we make a speciality of money in politics reporting, so when the dark money groups that we often cover burst into the headlines -- on reports that the Internal Revenue Service was denying the coveted tax exempt status to Tea Party groups -- we figured it was time to put what we know about the campaign finance ecosystem out there.
The process turned out to be revealing, if painful.
You can see the final product here. But we learned a lot ...
Continue readingDid almost 600 donors break campaign finance law in 2012?
As many as 600 individuals appear to have exceeded the $117,000 that they were legally allowed to give directly to federal candidates, political parties and political committees in the last election cycle, records examined by the Sunlight Foundation suggest. But our most troubling finding may how difficult it is determine with legal certainty exactly how many campaign scofflaws there are, or how much over the limit they gave. Like our former Sunlight colleagues, Paul Blumenthal and Aaron Bycoffe of the Huffington Post, we have been curious about the number of donors who appear to have exceeded campaign spending limits, in an era when the Supreme Court has made it possible for wealthy individuals to give in unlimited amounts via super PACs. In addition to those who violated the overall limit for giving to federal campaigns, we identified as many as 1,478 individuals who may have given more than the legal limit of $70,800 to parties and committees and 507 who appear to have given more than the $46,200 legal aggregate limit to individual candidates.
Continue readingNew appointees are long overdue but is the FEC broken?
Is the Federal Election Commission broken? That's the question a watchdog group asked a panel of experts on the day that the last of the current commissioners' terms expired, leaving the agency that oversees campaign finance law with one vacancy and five holdovers. Campaign finance reformers used the occasion to call on President Barack Obama to appoint new commissioners, something the president hasn't bothered to do since the Senate refused to act on his last nominee.
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