The Hill: PACs’ creative rule-bending
Last edited Wed Sep 16, 2015, 07:30 PM - Edit history (1)
PACs’ creative rule-bending
A pro-Hillary Clinton super-PAC uses an obscure loophole to make strategic information public, allowing it to be used by anyone — including the Clinton campaign.
And Chris Christie’s super-PAC is run by a man “who knows what the governor is thinking before he says it,” according to one adviser.
Presidential candidates and their “independent” super-PACS are finding increasingly creative ways to ensure they are coordinated in their strategies and messages, while not falling foul of the laws against coordination.
This legally ambiguous game of charades was foreshadowed by comedians Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, who established their own super-PACs and made fun of the “loop-chasm” (loophole) in coordination laws that allowed candidates and their supposedly independent groups to communicate, if not legally “coordinate,” during the 2012 presidential election.
Hillary Clinton and Correct the Record super-PAC
One of the more innovative examples of a super-PAC navigating the Federal Election Commission (FEC) coordination rules is the pro-Clinton rapid response and opposition research group Correct the Record. The New York Times broke a story in May that Correct the Record, which was started by Clinton ally David Brock, was refashioning itself as a “stand-alone super-PAC that has the ability to coordinate with [Clinton’s] campaign.”
Jeb Bush and Right to Rise super-PAC
Before Bush officially announced he was running for president — Bush filed with the FEC on June 15 — he spent months doing things that campaign finance lawyer Noble said looked an awful lot like he was running for president.
Noble noted that Bush appears to have decided months before his official announcement not only that he would run for president but that his super-PAC, Right to Rise, would play an important role in his presidential campaign, and so he traveled around the country raising millions of dollars in donations for the super-PAC before pledging to cut ties on the day he announced.
Chris Christie and America Leads super-PAC
If in doubt, use telepathy.
Many of the super-PACs are run by people who are so close to the candidate that they already know what the candidate will think on any given issue. With a close enough confidant running the super-PAC, independent groups can be in sync without breaking coordination laws.
F.E.C. Can’t Curb 2016 Election Abuse, Commission Chief Says
“The likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim,” Ann M. Ravel, the chairwoman, said in an interview. “I never want to give up, but I’m not under any illusions. People think the F.E.C. is dysfunctional. It’s worse than dysfunctional.”
Her unusually frank assessment reflects a worsening stalemate among the agency’s six commissioners. They are perpetually locked in 3-to-3 ties along party lines on key votes because of a fundamental disagreement over the mandate of the commission, which was created 40 years ago in response to the political corruption of Watergate.
Some commissioners are barely on speaking terms, cross-aisle negotiations are infrequent, and with no consensus on which rules to enforce, the caseload against violators has plummeted.
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