Outside Groups
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"Outside Groups" is a term for organizations other than party committees, registered federal political committees, or candidate committees. BCRA seeks to limit the ability of these groups to introduce soft money into the federal electoral process. It prohibits corporations and unions from naming a federal candidate in ads run in the candidate's state or district within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. An additional and complex provision is designed to prevent outside groups from "coordinating" with candidates their communications to the public, such as mail, phone or broadcast communications.

527s, Then (2004) and Now: The FEC, Then and Now

     The FEC Commissioners who worry that certain of their colleagues have abandoned 527 regulation refer to two disagreements over the application of the law and precedent to 2004 conduct.  This disagreement could well be squabbling over what the law was then—or, more consequentially, what it is right now. 

 

The FEC Decides, Yea Or Nay—Without Explanation

     What first makes a strong impression is the Federal Election Commission’s inability to decide whether an ad is ambiguous in its meaning if it closes with: "Barack Obama, a candidate whose word you can't believe in".   Three Commissioners thought there was a possible interpretation saving it from campaign finance regulation: they believed that the words could be read as other than an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.  Rick Hasen declares that the law is now "beyond" incoherence.

 

The RNC Attack on McCain-Feingold—in Association with Mr. Bopp

     Jim Bopp has made his name outside the of the Republican Party inner circle , concentrating his representations on third party "independent" groups bidding to pull free of McCain-Feingold.  Now he is on the attack for the Republican National Committee, at the same time that he continues the fight for the "groups."  The RNC is now, too, a "group" in revolt:  it wants out of the law sponsored by its just defeated nominee and signed into law by its incumbent President and party leader.  It has reached out to Bopp and Bopp has delivered the ambitious, frontal challenge that has characterized all of his wars on McCain-Feingold.

 

James Bopp and the Legal Significance of His "Truth" in Issue Advertising

     Jim Bopp and the editorialists at the New York Times are not of one mind on the issues of the day and if there is an exception here or there, no one would expect to find it in the realm of campaign finance doctrine.  And yet now, it seems that just that has happened:  a strange and expected convergence in their perspectives of 527 and other "issue advertising."  It has shown up in their beliefs that what an organization may or may not do legally depends, somehow and unexpectedly, on whether by one measure or the other, what it says is true.

 

The Times and the Issue of "527" Enforcement in 2008

     The New York Times grabbed the attention of CCP and others with its editorial on 527 "smears."  The Times applauded a court refusal to block application of existing rules that require 527s, such as the Real Truth About Obama, to comply with federal campaign finance laws.  What rubbed the critics the wrong way was the emphasis on the nature of the speech paid by the 527.  It seemed to them that, in the Times' worldview, the object of the campaign finance laws—of the 527 rules in particular—is to keep vile and dishonest speech off the air.

 

Also...

More in the Weekly Standard on AIP  9/8/08

Answering Hasen and CCP, on ALP  9/5/08

Allison Hayward Tries to Explain  9/3/08

Re-thinking How, or in What Ways, McCain-Feingold Affected Corporate Support for 527s  8/7/08

Tea Leaves, at the Federal Election Commission  8/6/08

On the EMILY's List Case  8/5/08

The "Real Truth" about Jim Bopp’s New Case  7/31/08

The FEC Is Back—With an Interesting First Test  7/24/08

SpeechNow Put Off for a While: a Damage Report  7/2/08

The Courts and the FEC: Sad Lessons To Be Drawn from the Shays Case  6/16/08