Club For Growth Sued
By Allison Hayward Posted in FEC — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
without that brashness and personality, the Club might not have been as
effective.”
The Club for Growth is a court-bound guinea pig for the application of
some new FEC theories. The FEC's complaint against the Club is
The Complaint says, for instance:
Some of the Club's solicitations for donations make clear
that contributions will be used for the purpose of supporting or
opposing specific federal candidates. Funds given in response to such
solicitations are "contributions" under 2 U.S.C. 431(8) because they are
given for the purpose of influencing federal elections. See FEC v.
Survival Education Fund, Inc., 65 F.3d 285, 295 (2d Cir.
1995).
Interestingly, this "rule" formed the basis for a new regulation,
promulgated in 2004 - long after the Club's activities. And the rule
was applied in the Survival Ed case not to find that a group has
exceeded the act's contribution limits, but for disclosure only. It
will be interesting to see how the FEC applies this "rule" to activity
from 2000, 2002 and 2004.
Moreover, the FEC's complaint noted that over $1,000 was raised in
response to these solicitations. Why? Well, if a group raises $1,000
in contributions, or makes $1,000 in expenditures, as defined, it must
register and report as a political committee, may only accept
contributions of $5,000 or less per year, and may not take money from
corporations, unions or foreign nationals. So the Club gets hammered
two ways by the new rule - it can't accept money that isn't clean
federal money solicited by invoking federal candidates, and if it
accepts over $1,000 it becomes a political committee.
So, did the Club violate federal law by not registering as a political
committee? As I noted on skepticseye.com, one defense, not entertained
in the complaint for obvious reasons, is that the Club's many mailers
and other statements about candidates and elections were to its members
- and member communications are exempt from treatment as federal
"expenditures." I doesn't matter whether you invoke federal candidate or
Martians - they're exempt.
Can a group like the Club for Growth, with an avowed electoral purpose
(and a 527 tax exemption), be a "membership organization" under federal
election laws and enjoy that exemption? That would seem to be the big
question here. But don't be surprised if that little threshold issue
gets lost in all the fascination over the Club's activities, brashness,
and general activist personality.
Of course, without that brashness and personality, the Club might not
have been as effective.
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Club For Growth Sued 5 Comments (0 topical, 5 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
They shill for the Dem's every single year and nothing happens.
It's just like vote fraud doesn't count either.
However, they did get in trouble; the IRS investigated revoking their 501(c)(3) status.
One bad law doesn't justify another. What doesn't make sense is to slap down more unconstitutional restrictions because we already have some.
I get that a lot of people here don't like BCRA. Heck, RS is a 527. That's fine.
However, it makes no sense to "reform" political campaign spending without sensibly regulating the 527s. Otherwise we get a bunch of shell groups spending millions on attack ads... which, again, I get that some people here don't have a problem with, but which sort of defeats the whole point of controlling spending. Personally, being from a 2004 swing state, I'll be happy if I never see another misleading attack ad again.
I don't know if the FEC is targeting CFG because Toomey doesn't like McCain, or as " merely the first in a long line of political organizations that the FEC is going to attack." If it's the latter, it's alright by me -- either clean up the bipartisan sludge fest of soft money, or just ditch BCRA altogether.