This file contains archived live captions of the open meeting of the Federal Election Commission held on July 25, 2015.  This file is not a transcript of the meeting, and it has not been reviewed for accuracy or approved by the Federal Election Commission.

>> Today's open meeting of the Federal Election Commission is scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m., but the actual start could be delayed by several minutes or more.
The agenda for today's meeting can be found online at http://www.fec.gov/agenda/ agendas/shtml. 
>> As you can see we do not have a quorum, so we cannot begin.
But hopefully it's 10:15, and it's publicly noticed for 10:00 a.m.
Hopefully can go forward soon.
I'm sorry to make you wait. 
>> The open meeting of the Federal Election Commission for Thursday, July 16th, 2015, will come to order.
We have an additional agenda item and some late-submitted documents this morning.
Mr. Vice Chair, do you have a motion?
>> Yes, I do.
I have -- I believe that there are a couple of different matters that we need to address.
Late documents.
>> Okay.
>> I move that we suspend the rules on the timely submissions of agenda documents in order to consider the following.
Agenda document numbers 15-40-A, 15-38-A, 15-39-A, 15-37-A, 15-41-A and 15-42-A. 
>> All right.
Are there any questions or comments with respect to the motion?
All of those in favor please indicate by saying aye?
[Chorus of Ayes]
>> Madam Secretary, that motion passed unanimously.
You have another motion, Mr. Vice Chair?
>> Yes, pertains to what I believe is item 13, I move that the commission add to the agenda consideration of motion to set priorities and scheduling on pending enforcement matters -- the commission determine to 11 C.F.R. section 2.7D, no earlier public announcement possible.
>> Are there any questions?
Concerns?
All right.
All of those in favor please indicate by saying aye?
[Chorus of Ayes]
>> Okay.
Madam Secretary, that motion passes unanimously.
Thank you.
The first item on the agenda is correction and approval of the minutes.
Mr. Vice Chairman.
>> I move approval of the minutes for the meeting held June 18th, 2015, set forth in agenda document number 15-34-A >> Thank you.
Any questions, corrections about the minutes?
If hearing none, all of those in favor please indicate by saying aye?
[Chorus of Ayes] 
>> Thank you.
Madam Secretary, that vote was unanimous as well.
So, we will move on to the first substantive item on the agenda.
Item number II, this is Draft Advisory Opinion 20-15-2, Grand Trunk railroad PAC.
We have Theodore Lutz and Robert Knop from the Office of General Counsel here to discuss the matter and I also want to indicate that the Illinois Political Action Committee is represented by Michael JBARRON, Jr., on the telephone?
>> Yes, I am.
>> Good morning.
Thank you for joining us.
Appreciate your presence.
>> You're welcome.
>> Okay.
Office of General Counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Lutz.
>> Thank you, good morning.
Draft -- Illinois central ROIRLD company PAC -- may be matched with donations to a Canadian registered charity.
Draft concludes that the proposal is consistent -- the donations are per missible solicitation -- no tangible benefits will be given to PAC contributrs to the contribution.
If approves -- 
>> Thank you very much, Mr. Lutz, for your presentation.
Are there any questions or comments for the Office of General Counsel or for Mr. Barron?
Hearing none, is there a motion?
>> I move in consideration of Draft Advisory Opinion 2015-02, Grand Trunk Western Railroad, Illinois Central Railraod Company Political Action Committee, approve document numbers -- also known as draft A.
>> Any discussion with respect to the motion?
Hearing none, all of those in favor, please indicate by saying aye?
[Chorus of Ayes]
>> That is, Madam Secretary, unanimous.
Thank you very much for your participation, Mr. Barron.
>> Thank you.
>> Excuse me.
>> Vice Chair.
>> Do you want me to make a new motion or just clarify that I intended as part of my motion to -- 
>> Item number III, Draft Advisory Opinion, 2015-3, Democracy Rules, Inc.
And we have with us Tony Buckley and Amy Rothstein from the Office of General Counsel here to discuss the matter, as well as, I believe, Mr. -- is Mr. Cashman, Ray Cashman, executive director of Democracy Rules, is he present on the phone?
>> Yes, I am.
Good morning.
>> Thank you very much for joining us Mr. Cashman.
Mr. Buckley.
>> Thank you -- Draft Advisory Opinion responding to request from Democracy Rules, incorporated.
Democracy Rules has established a web site that enables its members to vote for the most important issues and their positions on the issues.
The web site also allows members to pledge funds to support advocacy groups, re-election of legislators Democracy Rules considers best positioned to advance the members interest on a particular issue.
The draft concludes that because Democracy Rules UN -- 
it would not qualify for the commercial service exception that the -- Commission received one comment on the request and one comment on the draft.
If the commission approves the draft, we request authorization to make necessary and conforming changes.
>> Thank you.
Any questions or comments Office of General Counsel?
>> I have one.
>> Commissioner Goodman.
>> It is my understanding that Mr. Cashman is a lay requester, not represented by council.
>> That's correct.
>> He has had a lot of give and take with our Office of General Counsel.
>> Yes, sir.
>> Reacting somewhat to legal questions and has shown flexibility to modify his transactional plan in response to some questions that he has received and this is sort of a work in progress, trying to get to -- transactional model as well as a legal -- in compliance with our laws?
>> Yes, I think that is a fair characterizecharacterization.
>> Okay.
And thank you for raising that, and -- I do want to comment that this -- the purpose, as I see it, of the rules and campaign finance laws is in part to encourage greater civic participation, and, so, it's disconcerting to me that we have been unable to find a way to allow Democracy Rules to go forward to do just that, but I recognize that your analysis of the law is exactly correct, and therefore, you know, reluctantly I have to say that I will be supporting the motion here.
>> Madam Chair, let me just react to that.
We have on occasion, especially where there is a lay requester, and particularly in matters where people bring us technological innovations, web site platforms to engage the public, we have on occasion used this advisory opinion request process as sort of an interactive process to be a constructive process to help inform a requester of the sentiments of commissioners, and I don't know that we necessarily have to drive this to a conclusion today depending on what Mr. Cashman may want to do.
A process to perhaps engage in colloquy with Mr. Cashman, let Mr. Cashman learn some of the views of the Commissioners.
Views the Office of General Counsel couldn't share because we are the decision makers and I was hopeful we might engage with some colloquy of Mr. Cashman and find out what his tolerance level is to react to feedback that he might receive from the Commission here.
Instead of proceeding to a no vote that would stifle innovation and perhaps a constructive democratic platform on the web.
So, I -- with that in mind, could I ask Mr. Cashman a question?
>> I'm certainly amenable to that.
I assume that the rest of the Commission is amenable to that question.
Mr. Cashman. 
Go forward.
>> Mr. Cashman, are you with us?
>> Yes, sir, I am.
Commissioner Goodman here, Mr. Cashman, one -- have you read the Commission's advisory opinion in a matter called skimmerhat dot COM.
Opinion issued on August 2, 2012, advisory opinion 2012-22?
>> Yes, I have read that.
>> I don't know if you detected, but there was a difference in that advisory opinion, and the transaction --
excuse me, transactional model that skimmer had proposed versus the one that you propose, and the principle difference that I detect between skimmerhats transaction model and yours is that you take in the money up front.
You take in somebody's potential contribution, member's potential contribution up front.
You then put the potential choice of a -- of a recipient, whether it is a nonprofit organization or a candidate's campaign, through some type of selection process or advisory process.
I think you call it a -- 
through a series of presentation cycles.
>> That's correct.
>> Other groups call that an algorithm.
Others call it something else, but a lot of opinions we have approved have countenance, contributors using a third party to help them target where their money might best be used.
But the difference is you take the money before the recommendation is made, and then the money is bound at the end of that cycle.
You have held custody and title to the money in the interim, and then the person is bound to send the money where your algorithm or selection process lands.
Could you, if necessary, could you change your transaction to go through the same present -- 
presentation cycles that you go through to land on a recommended recipient, but then at the conclusion of that process receive the money from the member or contributor and process it and send it on to the recipient?
Would you be able to do that?
>> Very flexible as far as the process goes, however, you know, we actually -- user will come and deposit money to their account, but that money is not necessarily used in the political arena.
It can be used to send donations to our administration.
It can be used to support an advocate group in a long-term campaign or donate to disaster relief efforts and also to buy merchandise, localized merchandise that we offer on site.
This money that we take in advance, held in their account, and it can be used for those things as well as pledging a dollar, say, to a political committee of the -- 
jurisdiction over an issue.
So, we don't -- that money sits in their account and when the user wants to pledge money or dollars, say, to an issue or to a committee, then they can do so or not -- they can use it advocate group, something else, or a donation.
That money becomes a political donation in my mind at the time that it is pledged.
And that -- that money is not pledged until a poll has been taken and that poll displays the exact recipients that -- 
that that pledge could go to, and then during the pledging cycle, after the polling is completed, and issue is elected, then that user can donate a dollar to that issue, but it's displayed right at that point that those -- that the money is going to go to a legislator, maybe two legislators, and that is dependent upon a vote of the membership that have pledged to that issue, and that is what a uses -- users agree to.
I could also put like a check box for a user to -- to ask a user to agree to this process, even though it is very implicit, before they could register.
So, you know, we could -- we could do that to where people are very aware that that is the way the process works, but it is very implicit in the process that when people donate money to an issue, it is going to go to maybe a legislator, maybe an advocate group, but those choices are made available to him and displayed plainly before they take money out of their account to pledge to an issue.
So, that -- that is why I feel that -- 
>> Mr. Cashman, I have a follow-up based on what you just said.
I understand your plan is you want people to put money into the program beforehand.
Would you -- would you be able to accommodate, if the choice of the process is a federal candidate, and prior to the actual transfer of the contribution to the candidate, would you be able to provide the member or user of the platform the ability to say yes or no prior to the money going to the candidate?
>> So, in other words, if a -- 
if there is a candidate pledgespledges -- pledges a dollar, to, say effect a GMO food labelling issue, and he wants to back a bill which sponsors mandatory labelling of GMO food products, and he -- and that issue wins, goes to the pledging cycle and this person donates a dollar to support that legislation, then when it comes down to determining the recipient, in other words, trustee elections section, they -- they usually choose between the advocate group and a legislative means to promote that -- that bill.
And, you know, theoretically, we probably could create a way for them to opt out of whatever the trustee election holds, or brings, in other words, whoever the winner of the trustee election is, if someone doesn't agree with that recipient, we could probably design way for them to back out of that, but, you know, it seems kind of a redundant because if -- if someone is not in agreement with -- with the legislators that we have chosen, they do not have to pledge money, in other words, they're not pledging money and then we're telling them where it goes.
We're giving them option to say, okay, if you want to pledge money to these potential recipients, then do so.
If you do not like these recipients, then do not pledge a dollar to that election.
>> Thank you, Mr. Cashman.
I think we need to recognize that we have got to look at what we have before us or Mr. Cashman could withdraw his request for an AO at this point.
I think if there were going to be discussing other potentials, it would need to go back to the office.
>> I don't know that we did that in revolution messaging.
I think we worked with the requesters at the table to see if they wanted to supplement while pending and we took an extra meeting to give them time to discuss supplements.
>> Right -- 
>> I want -- 
>> I think it has been entirely appropriate what we have been discussing and he does have an opportunity, can do that if he wishes, but I think that for us to engage in an extended colloquy relating to any of the additional information now would be inappropriate for us to do.
It would have to be reviewed by the Office of General Counsel.
>> I'll -- I think we have got good feedback.
Think what might benefit Mr. Cashman on how to proceed is a little feedback from Commissioners.
I think if Mr. Cashman could incorporate some type of check-off point, prior to the money going to a candidate, the member or user of his platform actually says, okay, I understand you have recommended senator Jones for a contribution, and I say yes or no to that rather than have committed it previously and then having to live with the recommendation.
I think that opt out or opt in process at that point would probably satisfy the voluntary issue implicated in the draft opinion.
>> Well, actually rather than, you know, making a determination about something that we have not considered with advice of counsel, it seems to me that the question maybe that is appropriate is does Mr. Cashman wish to supplement his request and then it can be reviewed by Mr. Buckley and the office and it could come back to us at that point.
So, Mr. Cashman, what's your --
>> That would be very -- I appreciate that option.
My main question, I guess, is would -- what specifically do you feel I'm violating as far as election laws, as far as the way the process is currently set up?
>> Well, I -- I think that -- 
it's reflected in the draft by the Office of General Counsel, and we can't specifically give legal advice to the requesters, although Mr. Buckley -- 
>> Say whether a particular proposed activity is appropriate.
The Commission cannot say you have to do A, B, C, or D in order to fall within a statute.
>> Right.
>> I agree with that.
That is why I thought if Commissioners might give Mr. Cashman the benefit of their thinking and take that into consideration and have further conversations with Mr. Buckley off line.
Mr. Buckley can't speak for the six Commissioners.
I tried to be constructive giving my feedback here.
At the point of contribution to a federal candidate that needs to be reserved so that the individual is making that decision to give or not give, and we can -- we can discuss this in technical legal TERLS and whether -- terms and whether it is direction and control, whether over the analysis in the blue, whatever it is, think at that point that would satisfy me and make him look a lot more like skimmer hat at that point.
>> Thank you, Commissioner.
>> Just a minute, Mr. Cashman.
Mr. Vice Chair.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
This is Vice Chair Petersen, Mr. Cashman.
Just to help in terms of where I think we might be able to go.
The concerns that I think are raised primarily starting at the bottom of page 7, and going through page 8 and on to page 9 of the draft, that are summarized -- summarize what commissioner Goodman as said up to this point, but I want to associate myself with what he said that if -- if the request could be modified, more consistently with what our prior precedent, such as skimmer hat, legal precedent set forth in those, that I certainly would be amenable to considering that request.
And I think something just to give you the benefit of my thinking as well, I think a proposal along the lines of what Commissioner Goodman said I think likely satisfied those earlier precedents.
But, the concerns that the proposal has currently raised, it's -- it's -- the bottom of page 7 through pages 9 that is the kernel of the concerns about the current proposal that is before us.
>> Mr. Cashman, did you have --
>> Yes, I did.
And I kind of looked at what I saw, three issues in those pages, and one of them is that skimmer has a lot -- 
contributions to any federal candidate, and, you know, we can -- we can incorporate the ability to do this, in other words, you know, have a drop-down and menu and allow people to contribute to anybody that they want to, but this would be -- I believe that, you know, I'm not sure if that is what we -- that would be sort of counteractive to our users because it would hurt our efficiency, and, for example, you know, sending money to a committee of a legislator in the judicial committee for a bill that is in the ways and means committee, that's why I wasn't sure what the -- what criticism was levelled at us.
If they feel that we should be able to contribute to any federal candidate, even though it is not in -- in regard to an issue, so, I -- I wasn't quite sure what that -- that criticism was based in because that's not what we do.
And then they also had an issue of notification, notification cycle, which we can make a policy change and not nullify a cycle for the reason of a conflict of one month to another.
And then the third issue regarding those two pages was that commercial service provider may not unilaterally determine the -- I don't feel that we are, you know, in all -- in any way doing that because, you know, user has a choice to pledge money or not, and they see what they're pledging to, and also they also vote themselves, which issues are selected, what position is taken on those issues, and who is the recipient of those funds and they know all of those things before they make a pledge.
So, you know, we can, you know, incorporate a function that will give people a chance to opt out after the end of the --
after the end of the trustee election if that would be agreeable, although like I said, it seems a bit redundant because you have a choice of whether or not to pledge a dollar before, you know, before that election, but you know who the recipients are before you decide to pledge money.
So, that's -- that's where I was a little unclear about.
You know, if it -- if it is best to be resolved between Mr. Buckley and I and going forward, we can really -- I'm willing to make whatever changes that that can be recommended, and, you know, as long as the process itself is not corrupted.
I mean, this is a process by which people try to effect the issues and try to overcome the grid lock that has been so prevalent the past few years.
>> Thank you, Mr. Cashman.
I think Mr. -- 
>> Mr. Cashman, reaction to the three points you raised.
Drop-down menu, I don't know that skimmer hat or any other advisory opinions that the Commission previously approved require you to have a drop-down that the individual picks any candidate running for Congress today.
Skimmer hat helped people identify specific candidates.
That was the service they provided.
Your process of weaning -- of identifying and matching member or user to potential candidates that might be of interest, we've proved that on many occasions.
Some people use a computerized algorithm, others used subjective judgments to do so.
So I don't think it is the recommendation process that necessarily is implicated.
I think that the fact that people want to come to your web site, to help identify two or three or four causes or potential candidates to give to, is not the problem.
Second, nullification I do think to be compliant with federal elections laws -- you would want to get rid of the nullification provision.
And then, third, I understand that you don't think that you're unilaterally deciding recipients as stated here, but it's -- it's at the point of contribution that I think will concern the Commission the most.
When the individual -- when you've made your final recommendation of a candidate, and the individual is now going to say yes or no, I want to give to that candidate, that's the point where I believe, and I can't speak for all of my fellow Commissioners, but I believe that is the point where some Commissioners would like to see the voluntary decision of the contributor preserved at the point of saying yes or no.
Once your process says senator Smith meets your objectives on GMOs, the individual can say, and we recommend that you give to senator Smith, I believe that the individual should be able to say yes or no at that point.
>> So, Mr. Cashman, would you request an extension of time so that you can amend your request and maybe you can give me some advice as to the formal process on how to do that?
>> He can send me an email indicating that he is granting an extension of time.
The expiration date is August 4th.
Perhaps 30 days would be sufficient to address this.
>> Is that amenable to you, Mr. Cashman?
>> Yes, I do wish to extend, and 30 days should be a sufficient time to incorporate that into the process.
>> Okay.
So, if you could send an email to Mr. Buckley of the Office of General Counsel to that effect.
This matter will be taken up at a future time.
Just to caution and Commissioner Goodman wishes to speak again, but don't forget he did say that he is only one Commissioner.
Some of us will be -- some of us will be reacting to whatever advice we receive from the Office of General Counsel with respect to your amendment.
>> Madam Chair.
Yes, Mr. Cashman, I'm only one of six Commissioners and I'm not speaking for all Commissioners here.
People have tried this before, taken more time and come back and still not receive the four votes they were hoping to get, but I'm trying to turn this into a constructive exercise for you.
I think it is also important that when you -- this -- I -- I don't tend to have exparte communications off line -- 
technical provisions of making -- skimmer hat advisory opinion and be sure to incorporate issues such as the permissibility of -- your ability to take refunds, for example, your ability to transmit the contributions within 10 days, I think that was reflected in the skimmer hat.
There are a lot of legal requirements for making and handling political contributions, and I -- I would encourage you to have a discussion with Mr. Buckley about those as well, okay.
>> Thank you very much.
I appreciate your help this morning.
>> Thank you very much for your participation, Mr. Cashman.
>> Very good.
>> The next item is item number IV, draft advisory opinion 20-15-4, Collective Actions PAC. 
Hi, we have Gabe Panek and Robert Knop, Office of General Counsel, and I believe Mr. Chris Pearson who is the chair of Collective Actions PAC on the line.
>> Hello, thank you for having me.
>> Hi, thank you very much for participating.
Welcome.
Is there a presentation, Mr. Panek, and thank you very much for being here to present.
I understand that you are an intern in the office.
>> That's right.
>> Well, welcome.
>> Thank you.
>> We're looking forward to your presentation.
Thanks for your work.
>> Thank you.
Agenda document 15-39-A Draft Advisory Opinion responding to a request from Collective Actions PAC, non-connected political committee.
Committee asks whether it may include the name of senator Bernard Sanders, candidate for the democratic -- the draft concludes that Collective Actions PAC may not use candidate Sanders name -- 
unauthorized committees are generally -- which includes the title of any web site or social media account operated by the committee.
None of the relevant exceptions to this rule apply.
We receive no comments on the request and one comment from the requester on the draft, if the Commission approves the draft, Office of General Counsel requests authorization to make necessary technical and conforming changes.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Are there any questions?
Commissioner Goodman.
>> Mr. Panek, that was an excellent presentation from a law student.
Welcome.
>> Thank you, Commissioner.
>> And I guess I have a question for you.
The use of the name of a candidate in a URL web site, that's not in our regulation, is it?
That's creation of a former advisory opinion applying the regulation, am I right about that?
>> Talking about this particular -- in this particular context or in -- 
>> As a general rule, the treating a URL of a web site as an activity, you know, the regulation speaks of programs, activities, and what have you.
>> Yes.
>> The application of those terms that our regulation prohibits to the use of a URL that has the name Newt in it or Bernie, was an application out of an advisory opinion, right?
>> The first time that came up was in the new watch advisory opinion, that's right.
>> Right.
Okay.
>> Yes.
>> I'm right about that, Mr. Panek?
>> Yes, Commissioner Goodman.
>> Thank you.
I guess I just had a comment then.
I understand that this is water over the dam.
Commission decided to expand this rule to include programs and activities, historically beyond just the use of a name in the name of an unauthorized political committee, and the Commission did that.
That has been reviewed by a federal circuit court and ruled to be constitutional -- and I understand by advisory opinion, Commission has historically extended the activities and program restriction to a URL, using the name Newt, and, therefore, where it is pretty clear this is Bernie Sanders, that rule applies.
So I'm not here to make new law today.
I'm going to vote for this draft because this is based on the precedents of the Commission.
I do think, however, that every reference in a -- in a URL web site, where you might land on a web site that makes it very clear, you are not Bernie.
You are a third-party group that supports Bernie.
Avoids the fundamental reason why we have this rule in the first instance, which is to avoid fraud and confusion.
If there is no fraud or confusion, once you land on that web site, I -- I'm concerned that we may have gone -- applied this rule restriction in an overbroad way.
I would support looking at this restriction and tailoring it to situations that apply directly to fraud and confusion.
>> All right.
Any other comments?
Questions?
Thank you very much, again, Mr. Panek, for your -- 
obviously doing a good job at NYU training you.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you.
All of those in favor please indicate by saying aye?
>> Motion.
>> I will be happy to make that motion.
>> Really, no, we don't need it.
Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair.
>> Absolutely.
Draft advisory opinion 2015-04, Collective Actions PAC, I move approval of agenda document number 15-39-A, otherwise known as draft A.
>> Thank you.
Now are there any -- 
>> Technical -- 
>> Let me add that in, technical and conforming edits that may be necessary.
>> All right.
All of those in favor hearing no comments, all of those in favor please indicate by saying aye?
[Chorus of Ayes]
>> Madam Secretary, that matter is decided unanimously.
Once again, thank you.
You achieved something that nobody else can achieve, a unanimous vote. 
Thank you.
The next item, actually before we go to the very next item, I would like to take a matter out of order and that's item number XII so that we can get this approved.
Item number 12, revised meeting dates for September and December 2015.
And let me just introduce this item rather briefly.
What I -- when I took on the obligation of Chair, we discussed internally and I discussed it with Vice Chair Petersen and we decided that we were going to go with fewer actually dates in a month than we had previously had, but we -- nonetheless were actually going to have as many meeting dates as we had before because we had two exec sessions in one month, which was very similar, and, in fact, the number of days that we have met in executive session this year exceed the number of days that we met in executive session last year.
And the reason for making that change, and we discussed it at the time that we might amend it if we felt that we needed to do something to have greater productivity, even greater than what we have had, but the reason for doing it was that a number of these items require quite a bit of consideration and thought and discussion internally in the building and we felt that we could be more productive and, in fact, we have, in fact, been more productive than we were last year.
We have resolved 60 matters through executive session, and 122 additional matters on tally vote prior to the meetings, whereas in the same period in 2014, the Commission resolved about 55 matters in executive session, and 74 on tally.
So, the procedure has definitely been more successful and I believe has allowed us to have more interchange than we otherwise might have had.
Nonetheless, we have come to conclude, and there is another item on the agenda today with respect to that matter, we have concluded that we do and should have more meetings in order to deal with the cases that we have before us.
And, for that reason, I have asked my colleagues for flexibility in adding more dates to the agenda.
And that's what we have before us here today.
Mr. Vice Chair.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
I am supportive of the additional sessions that we will be having between now and the end of the year and I think that the system has worked well up -- and we have -- we have had very robust agendas of late and the chair -- we may have occasional disagreements on substance, but I commend her efforts to see that we bring matters to conclusion and we have had a -- I mean, we will be continuing a session that we started on Tuesday after we conclude here where we will hopefully resolve even further matters, but I agree that in light of what we have out there that adding additional sessions in order to continue to resolve matters in a more expeditious basis, I think is very important and so I'm supportive of that effort and look forward to between now and the end the year clearing the decks of even further matters.
I think we will be able to accomplish that.
>> Thank you very much, Mr. Vice Chair.
I have to say I have self-characterized myself as a nag, and, so -- 
>> Sometimes, a little nudge is a good thing.
>> Yes, absolutely.
Are there any other comments about this item?
So -- Commissioner Walther.
>> I do have a matter coming before us talking about priority a little bit.
I am supporting meetings that we -- without question, any time.
But I think later I want to have a discussion on what the priorities are going to be, where we sit right now with what is pending before us.
>> Right.
With that, all of those in favor of -- oh, sorry.
Mr. Vice Chair.
You have to make a motion.
>> Happy to make a motion that I move approval of the revised meeting dates for September through December of 2015 as set forth in agenda document -- 
>> Any discussion?
Hearing none, all of those in favor indicate by saying aye?
[Chorus of Ayes]
>> Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I really appreciate your cooperation, Commissioners. 
>> Item number 5, from the agenda, per se, not from ever.
Item number 5, proposed directive 74 on the timely resolution of enforcement matters.
This is a directive proposed by Commissioner Weintraub.
Would you like to speak to this matter?
>> I would.
I was hoping that we would be in a position today to actually vote on a new proposed directive.
We are not, sadly, in that place.
I, despite many, many very cordial conversations that the Vice Chairman and I have had on this topic.
The word nag does spring to mind yet again.
I originally proposed this to my colleagues back in May.
It has been a couple of months.
The topic is timeliness, so I think it would be good if we could timely consider this.
I have received last week a counter-proposal from my colleagues.
I had suggested to them that they might want to make that public so that we could discuss the relative merits and they thought it was premature to do so.
I'm going to respect that and I'm not going to as I indicated to the Vice Chairman earlier today I am not going to try to out anybody's proposal that they're not ready to talk about publicly.
But I will take a few minutes to talk about how important I think this is and why I think it is important that we try to reach some kind of agreement.
I'm glad that we have more meetings scheduled, that's going to help but it is not going to solve the problem that I see.
Back in the day for most of the Commission's existence, actually, Commissioners voted on ballots that were presented to us by the general counsel's office on 72 hour tally.
There was a period of time when the Commission voted on 48-hour tally.
And those were substantive votes.
And sometimes there were objections, obviously, and they were put on an agenda for discussion amongst all Commissioners and when that happened, that discussion usually took place within a couple of weeks, sometimes within a matter of days.
So, Commissioners were not holding up the works.
Commissioners were acting fairly expeditiously on the recommendations that were put to us by the Office of General Counsel, and we have, I think, fallen into some very different habits and not productive ones where matters now routinely sit on Commissioners' desks for months and sometimes years without that initial substantive thumbs up, thumbs down decision on the recommendation of the Office of General Counsel.
And that really does a disservice to really everybody involved in this process.
It's not good for respondents when they have an allegation hanging over their head and they want to clear their reputation or get right with the law, whichever result happens to be the result, I mean, there were many, many cases.
People talk about the disagreements.
There are many cases that the Commission unanimously dismisses and we owe it to respondents to do that on a timely basis so that they can get on with their lives and not have it hanging over their heads.
Similarly, for complainants, they file complaint and want to know what happens to it and it sits here for years and it is like disappearing into a black hole.
If they are -- and more and more we are actually starting to see complainants that don't wait to see what we are going to decide.
They decide it is taking too long and they file suit under, what we use -- I am not even sure what the citation is anymore since they changed all of the citations around, as is their right under the law to try to get some resolution and figure out what the end result of their complaint is.
The public is disserved when we take too long to act on these matters.
The elections come and go.
Sometimes on the same candidates, and they still don't know whether this -- what to think about the allegations that may be out there about somebody that the candidate may or may not have violated the law.
Somebody said they did, but the FEC has not resolved the matter.
That's unfair to them and this shouldn't be a partisan issue.
Mitchell, well regarded conservative election lawyer quoted recently in the press, I wish the FEC could figure out a way to move things faster.
I completely agree with her.
We really have got to do this better.
The folks who may be -- who are also very strongly impaired by this are all of the folks out there who are trying to imply with the rules, and trying to consult with their lawyers and engage in political activities and they know that somebody did something last cycle or the cycle before, and somebody else said that it might or might not have been legal, and they go to their lawyers and they say well, can I do that?
Is is that legal or isn't it?
And lawyers really don't know what to say.
Well, I can give you my best guess but I can't actually tell you what the Commission has determined because they have not made a determination yet.
It disadvantages all people out there trying to engage in political activities and do so in a lawful way, disadvantages respondents, disadvantages the public, disadvantages folks that just want to get on with their lives.
We have a case in front of us that we looked at recently.
Somebody got caught up in the administrative fines program.
TRESH -- treasurer said I just want to close it down, terminate it and be done.
They can't close it down because there is a complaint pending and we haven't resolved the complaint yet.
It is sitting on our desk.
There are over 70 matters sitting on our desk, some of them for as I said quite a long time.
So, I had proposed that we give ourselves some deadlines, that we give ourselves a generally a six-month deadline from the time something hits our desk to make that decision, and I didn't actually think that six months was that aggressive a pace for us to try to commit to, considering that, as I said the Commission in the past had made decisions like this within 72 hours, and if you compare it to the kind of decision-making that has to go on in the private sector when people are trying to avise clients and some of us have been in that situation.
Trying to advise clients.
They come to you and say I want to run an ad, I need to know whether this is okay to do and you have to tell them then and there.
You can't say to a client, well, I will have to take that under consideration.
I'll get back to you in six months, maybe a year, maybe two years, maybe three years.
You can't function that way out in the real world.
And we should hold ourselves to higher standards.
For those of us who may be contemplating going back into private practice some day, Commissioner Goodman, I don't want you to go out there with a reputation as somebody who can't make up his mind in under six months, not willing to make that kind of commitment.
If client came to you, tell you in six months.
They would say see you later, buddy.
I'll find another lawyer, right.
Other people don't make decisions on this kind of a time frame, and we shouldn't either.
At this point, I have not gotten buy in on my six month plan.
We are continuing to discuss, but I would urge my colleagues to actually think hard about the six-month plan and think about whether that is really an unreasonable time frame for us to -- under which for us to do our business.
I really do think that we are -- this is one of our fundamental responsibilities.
Getting all of this great information up on the web, as we did today with all of the information that came pouring in last night.
I want to throw a shout out and thank you to all of the analysts and IT folks who were Manning the phones as people were trying to get the reports in at the last minute and stayed late to do so. 
That's one of our core functions to make sure that we get that information out there, but civil enforcement of the law is one of our core functions and not one that can be delegated to anybody else.
Justice department can't do it.
There is nobody else who can make these decisions besides us.
And we really need to earn our keep.
We need to earn the salary that the taxpayers pay us, and roll up our sleeves and maybe work a little harder.
And what I'm trying to do is get buy in from my colleagues and get us all to commit to doing a better, faster job and commit to some timelines to do so.
Because we can all say and we all do say, of course, we want timely enforcement of the law.
We want to do a better job, but I think the purpose of the directive is to try and get some really hard commitments on the table.
So, I will continue to work with my colleagues in hopes that we can get to yes on this or on something like this.
And again, given that it is about timeliness, I don't think we should take too much time, but maybe by September we can give ourselves that deadline for coming to resolution on this for trying to nail down that agreement, and I want to appreciate very much the patience of the Vice Chairman who I have been primarily dealing with on this, and somewhat relentlessly, and I look forward to further productive discussions.
>> Mr. Vice Chair.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
Let me first of all say I agree with much of what Commissioner Weintraub has said.
As this has been brought back to the forefront, increased the sensitivity level when carrying out our responsibilities, in reaching a fair result, that it is not only trying to reach what each of us think is the right result, and there are a lot of difficult and complex and novel questions that come before us, and some of them are thorny that take a lot of thinking about to arrive at what each of us think is the correct conclusion, but that needs to also be -- that consideration also has to be paired with the timeliness consideration for the reasons that you mentioned.
Respondents and claimants alike both need closure of one sort of another on their matter, and in as soon a time as possible.
The public and regulated community need clarity and guidance.
The enforcement process does flush out the statutory and regulatory scheme, providing further under standing and to the extent that we can get that out sooner rather than later, that benefits everybody involved in the process that we -- that we oversee and regulate.
And, so, I -- I agree that we need to do that.
I think that that is why the --
the discussions that we have had, and I know that we have another agenda item that is going to address this I think has been productive to resensitize us to that -- that concern that, which is very legitimate and that we always remember that timeliness needs to be paired with our efforts to reach the optimal result.
In most cases, those two considerations -- especially in those cases, I -- there is no question that we should resolve those and be able to make it public disposition of those as quickly as possible.
The discussion, the heart of the discussion right now is for the -- for the subset of cases that, where there is some tension between timeliness or timeliness that we would normally strive for in reaching the right result, we mentioned before that there are some, you know, categories of cases that may require some additional time.
You know, whether it is because you have the same respondent who is involved in a number of different complaints, you have different complaints that involve a similar issue.
Whether there is an outstanding legal case that speaks to issues at the heart of the matter that is before us and that we may be getting further court guidance, and, so, what the heart of the discussion is right now is how can we accommodate that and build that into a -- into our process without that swallowing the rule.
I know that is my -- the concern of my colleague.
And that's what I think we need to -- that's what we're trying to figure out is we don't want an exception to swallow the rule, notwithstanding whatever timeliness demands may be in other parts of a directive, that they're meaningless because they're so easily set aside and I agree that we don't want to make it easy on ourselves to prolong the time by which we consider these matters.
I look forward to continuing those discussions as well and hope that we can reach a result soon, because I think that, you know, I -- I think that obviously the ultimate guarantor of moving quickly is a recommitment from each of us to move quicker and I think certainly adding more dates is going to help us, you know, process more matters.
But I understand my colleague's concern that we also -- it is nice to have a back-stop to prevent the possibility of getting into bad habits and that a directive help us do that.
So, I look forward to continuing the discussions we have had so far on this matter.
>> I'm not part of your discussions, but I do want to weigh in a little bit on this issue, and I have to say, Mr. Vice Chair, as always, your statements about this matter of thoughtful and well considered, and I agree with everything that you said, and I certainly understand that you can't have a hard and fast rule because of the realities of complexity, and some of the factors that you discussed, but those factors, I do believe, need to be addressed in the most narrow fashion possible.
I know you're talking about the exception swallowing the rule, but I think there are ways to look at each one of those factors that are totally good and appropriate ones, but that we have to make sure in whatever we write in those exceptions to identify based on our experience those things that truly require that kind of extension of time to be able to consider and make an ultimately thoughtful decision, because that's what we all want.
We don't want to be hurried up to be making decisions on a particular timeline without any ability to think through the complicated questions.
So, I'm totally in agreement with that, but I do worry about ensuring that we have some ability to kind of force one another when we want to languish to actually -- and that's not -- I'm not pointing fingers, I'm just saying as a general rule, we -- there is a tendency to kind of do that and I think we need a little bit of -- having tried to force people not to languish this year, and I'm sure you will have that opportunity next year as well and I'm sure Commissioner Goodman had that opportunity last year, and I think we need to be cognizant of the importance of what we're doing.
Okay.
>> I expect to bring this back up again.
>> Thank you. 
All right.
The next item on the agenda is item VI, notice to respondents of information sharing by the Commission, and this is a memorandum that was brought by Commissioner Goodman.
Commissioner Goodman, would you like to speak to -- 
>> Yes, Madam Chair, thank you.
This policy has been pending for two months, under consideration by the Commission for about two months.
We discussed it previously, agreed to take some time.
I have accommodated some comments that I have received from other Commissioners, and I'm prepared to move that the Commission approve agenda document 15-26-A, notice to respondents of information sharing by the Commission with the following edits to the language appearing in agenda document number 15-26-A to be included in the initial letter to respondents.
The first sentence will be moved to a footnote at the end of the second sentence.
And the phrase can and does in the second sentence will be changed to the word may.
Accordingly, the following language shall be included in all letters providing initial notice of a complaint or internally generated referral, or providing initial notice that the Commission has made a reasonable finding as follows.
Please be advised that although the Commission cannot disclose information regarding an investigation to the public, it may share information on a confidential basis with other law enforcement agencies.
That would be followed by a footnote.
And the text of the footnote shall state the following.
The Commission has the statutory authority to refer knowing and willful violations of the FECA to the Department of Justice for potential criminal prosecution.
52 USC 301-A 9 -- report information regarding violations of law not within the jurisdiction to appropriate law enforcement authorities.
Period and then a -- 52 USC 30107-A-9.
That's my motion.
I would be happy to provide the secretary a written copy of the motion.
>> Thank you.
>> Commissioner Walther.
>> I had a discussion with Commissioner Goodman about this and I support that but I have been advised that there is some memorandum that is confidential that I -- maybe interested in looking at before we vote on the matter.
I suggest that maybe we put this over until lunch and see what that might bring.
From what I can see, I don't see anything that is going to change my vote, but on the other hand, it deserves enough attention to say yes we looked at it and -- 
>> I don't know how we -- by consensus, I would agree to push it off -- excuse me, after lunch.
Are we going to still be in public session?
This is a public matter.
>> Right.
>> I think so.
>> I don't know we are going to take a break for lunch and come back to public session.
>> Yeah.
And let me say for my part, number one, I have not been part of your discussion, so hearing you does not concern me, but I know there are other issues that I raised that I think may need to be included in any notice, and we have not received -- we received some memorandum from the Office of General Counsel just yesterday, which I have not been able to review given that I was preparing for the meeting.
So, I personally am not prepared to vote on this matter today.
I do not think that it is appropriate to bring it back right now, and I understand it has been two months but I have not had any conversations with you or with Commissioner Walther with respect to these issues.
It is in consideration of just the issues that we talked about before where we don't want to be making decisions that are potentially going to have ramifications that are possibly not to the benefit of this Commission or of the work that we're doing for the public, I do not believe that we should be making -- having votes with insufficient time to consider the problem.
Commissioner Weintraub.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
I support that.
I also want more time to consider the memorandum that we just got from counsel.
We just got it.
And I would ask my colleagues, as a matter of collegiality, because this happens, I think it is also going on right now with respect to an enforcement matter that we're trying to resolve.
My colleagues sometimes -- 
>> What was that?
>> I am trying to -- you will get it when I finish my sentence.
My colleague will sometimes go to one person on the other side and try to make a deal with them and not share anything with the rest of us.
Maybe we will agree and maybe we won't agree, but we do have to vote on it.
So, you obviously have been talking with Commissioner Walther and you feel like you have reached a deal that you two are happy with -- whether I agree or disagree.
I need to vote.
I would like more than 10 seconds to consider the language.
I may end up agreeing with you.
I may support it.
But I think it would be a nice thing if we could as a courtesy to each other, if you are going to put some language on the table and ask people to vote on it, show it to us in advance before we walk in the door of the meeting so that we can think about it for 10 seconds.
I don't want to delay things.
I'm a big fan of timeliness, but I would like to not be making decisions on the fly.
>> Let me react to the request to delay a matter in a meeting where we're discussing expediting matters.
The language before us has been on blue on the public agenda for two months.
There is no change in this language that has been before this Commission for two months other than the words can and does change the word may.
The language was approved by this Commission years ago, and published in the Federal Register.
It is two sentences of text.
I don't think you need over two months to consider those two sentences of text where the Commission has previously approved this text, and published in the Federal Register, and it is binding on everybody already and the only thing that this proposal does is take language published in the Federal Register, and place it in a letter to respondents so that they have it in front of them, especially lay respondents who wouldn't know to go look at the Federal Register.
This is two sentences that have been before the Commission for over two months, and no other Commissioners, other than Commissioner Walther came to me with any suggestions for edits in the last two months.
So, to now say when you knew this matter has been scheduled for months, that you need more time to consider it to me, I was collegial for two months.
I said -- when I first brought it up in May, I said let's take more time with it.
Came back up in June, I said I want to be collegial.
Let's take more time with it.
Now all of the sudden what I sense is, no, this is -- this is delay for the purpose of delay.
>> Let me just not to belabor something which I already said, but you know that at the last meeting what was requested from me was that we get a memo from counsel with respect to other matters that we could put together.
Rather than doing one thing in isolation that we should look at all of the kinds of notices that we're required to do from -- from a legal standpoint.
That is the reason for my request for the delay.
I know a memo came in from OGC yesterday, which I have not even glanced at because it is not -- it came in right before the meeting, and, therefore, I am not attempting to delay a decision just to delay it with respect to your issue.
I am absolutely trying to deal with this matter on an expedited basis, and, yet, give us an opportunity to look at the memo from the Office of General Counsel that might inform our decision-making.
>> The memo doesn't change this proposal.
It doesn't change what was already published in the Federal Register.
It doesn't change what was published federal register is the policy of long standing at the Commission and doesn't change my proposal to put this language of the federal register in the body of the letter that goes out to respondents.
There may be other good things you want to do based on the memorandum that we -- it doesn't change this proposal.
I have a pending motion.
If you would like to move to table or postpone.
You can do so and we will put that up to the vote but there is a motion on the floor.
>> Commissioner Walther.
>> I would offer comment on this, suggestion that somehow I made a deal in secret.
This is a decision as to whether or not to provide when a letter goes out to a respondent, whether to give them the same notice that the person gets when they come in with -- this language is identical with the language that Commissioner Weintraub voted for back in 2007.
And all it does is give notice of possibility that our agency might communicate in the future at some point on issues that may or nay not relate to a given case that comes before us. 
The only thing that I did with respect to Commissioner Goodman was suggest that a portion of it go into a footnote and the balance of it verbatim.
I'm fine with the whole thing, that I suggested that a portion go into a footnote.
That had nothing to do with the merits other than the formality of where to put the language. 
>> Commissioner Weintraub.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
I understand that you don't think that counsel's advice to us in this memorandum, which unfortunately we can't discuss, has a bearing at all.
You can sit there and say to you it has absolutely no bearing on what you want to do.
To me I think it is relevant and I would like to consider it and I would like to consider --
I may end up voting for your proposal, Commissioner.
I really may.
Just calm down about this.
But, as I said, even small changes, you knew you were going to make these -- make this motion.
You knew it was not going to be identical to the language that you proposed.
You know.
Where would have been the harm in your sending around an email to your colleagues saying just so you know, I'm going to make a motion.
This is what I am going to put before you.
That's all I'm asking for in advance of the meeting.
It is complicated by the fact that we have advice from counsel that I think is overlapping with what you are proposing to do here.
So, I -- I would -- for me it is relevant.
It may not be relevant to you.
It's relevant to me.
I would like to consider the advice of our counsel on this and, which may lead me to propose that there might be a better way of doing this, a different way of doing this.
You know, I, you know, I could, you know, we could play this game, you know, you can say you never came to talk to me.
I could say you never came to talk to me either.
I mean, it's -- we could go back and forth on that.
I don't think it is terribly productive.
Bottom line is we did receive advice of counsel this week.
I want to consider it.
Honestly, Commissioner, I do have some concerns about doing this because I am concerned about scaring people off from talking to us, and, I mean, effectively, we're putting a Miranda notice in our notifications to respondents, which is not something that civil enforcement agencies normally do and it really has very limited impact on the people that we deal with because very, very, very seldom are there actually criminal implications for what happens over here.
We don't refer people over to the Department of Justice all that office.
So, yes, I think that is a counter-Vailing concern that I have been thinking about, but the real reason that I am -- 
that I want a little more time is because I want to think about what our lawyers have presented to us just this week.
>> All right.
>> Commissioner Walther, excuse me, if I could give you an extension until after lunch and I knew we were still in public meeting and stand on the motion and put up for vote, I would do so, I'm not sure how the meetmeeting is going to go today.
I would like to get a vote on this today.
>> A motion on the table.
>> Could I address a brief recess on the matter before we talk, before we go to the vote.
>> No problem.
Brief.
Brief.
We have audience full of people who want to consider other matters. 
>> We are back on the record.
Thank you all in the audience for your patience.
I can't remember where we were -- yes.
>> I think the ball was in my court.
>> Commissioner Goodman.
>> I want to recognize the principle of collegiality and the importance of affording Commissioners additional time to consider matters when they request additional time to consider a matter.
With that principle in mind, I will withdraw my motion at this time, and request that it be placed first on the next public meeting agenda following administrative matters and any advisory opinion requests at which point we can take it back up and I would like to do that without objection.
>> I would be happy to place it on the agenda first after the matters that need to be taken up at the next public meeting, which will take place in August.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Yes, Commissioner Weintraub.
>> I want to thank my colleague for his collegiality and state publicly that I offered that, you know, if it would be helpful for us to take a week and or a few days and circulate something on tally so we wouldn't have to wait a full month, I would be amenable to that as well.
Not trying to drag out the process.
>> That's fair, too.
If we can take care of it by tally -- if not -- 
>> Thank you very much.
The next item on the agenda is item agenda document 15-37-A, policy on 3rd party appearances before the Commission to discuss advisory opinion.
>> Sorry, Madam Chair.
>> Did I miss one?
>> Item number 6, by the way, my request was going to be to continue to hold that.
I have received on this matter, item VII, I have received from two different Commissioners different points of view, and a memorandum of the Office of General Counsel that came upstairs and I will request that that be carried over to the next public meeting.
>> Item VII, proposed statement of policy regarding the public disclosure of enforcement files, or 6?
>> Number 7, and I request that that be held over.
Yes.
>> Okay. 
All right.
That is item VII.
Assuming there is no objection from the rest of the Commission, we will hold over item VII. 
Okay.
Thank you.
And then the following matter, item number VIII that I previously called, we have before us Adav Noti, Theodore Lutz, and Robert Knop of the Office of General Counsel.
Mr. Lutz go forward with a discussion.
Thank you.
>> Thank you again.
At the May 21st open meeting, Office of General Counsel was asked to assess how and whether the public can participate in the Commission's consideration of AOs in open meetings.
Agenda document summarizes assisting AO procedures, potential benefits and draw-backs of allowing third parties to appear before the commission at open meetings and -- thank you, I am available for any questions. 
>> Thank you. 
I know we also received just a side note for the record, a letter with respect to this matter from -- I don't have it right in front of me.
I believe it was Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, as well.
Are there any questions or comments on this matter?
So, let me speak to the question of the matter because I was the initiating force behind this, and I think this is something that is really important, and that we have seen from our own experience that the Commission's deliberations and we have been talking about thoughtful analyses of matters today, that our deliberations would be greatly aided by the ability of third-parties to participate in providing information to us and discussion of legal issues that are involved in opinion requests.
Furthermore, I mean, I have to say just as a general question, as a general issue, the idea of having greater transparency of the work we do, greater participation of the public in the work we do is a really important thing for us, and that is the -- what is going forward as -- in our government in general at all levels, including at the federal level, is the ability for the public to have more meaningful input into governmental decision-making that is going to be of some impact to the entire populous and our AOs, as we know, are in some ways done well about specific facts, they have relevance to many other people who are interested in the kind of work that we do, and an example of why it is important for us to get other information -- I know that you're talking in some ways in your memo about counsel from --
for different parties that are interested in this, but what gave rise to this concern to me initially was when we were doing the number of AOs that had to do with bit coin and one of them even you mentioned it earlier, Commissioner Goodman, revolution messaging, and I recall specifically that one of the people from Revolution Messaging, who was asking to be exempted from our rules said you all don't understand anything about technology and you're essentially what he said, you are making decisions in a vacuum.
And I have to agree with him on that, and I agreed with him and I agreed that that was the case in bit coin, with all respect to the Office of General Counsel, you did a -- you are not exactly experts in the field.
It is extremely important for us to have input.
And I know you talked a little bit about the timing issue, and the letter that we received from the commenter, I think makes a very good point.
If you look at our agenda today, we had how many matters that were -- seven matters, six matters that we had to vote to put on the agenda because there was -- they were not placed on the agenda with sufficient time to meet the statutory requirement for notice to the public.
So, it is impossible, I believe, for the public to be able to comment about these matters with so little time.
It would be unfair and would essential lyessentially -- your terminology, swallow up the rule if we were to require that they have put in a written comment within the time period, and, therefore, would not be able to come forward before us and comment about a matter.
So, with that, I would say that on my part, of course, this was my suggestion to begin with, but -- and I thank you for your memo.
I thought it was very well considered, and very helpful, but this is certainly something that I think the entire Commission in the interest of making much more well-considered decisions should support.
Commissioner Weintraub.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
I agree with that.
My thinking really has evolved on this, as I have seen how the Commission used to work with AOs before we allowed people to come and talk with us at the table and how it has worked after.
I think I was the first Commissioner to actually suggest that we ought to afford an opportunity for the requesters to come in before you guys even got here.
I can remember we used to engage in bizarre sort of games of charades where the requester's lawyer would be sitting out there and we would need to confirm certain facts, and I can recall once with -- 
sitting out in the front row and I would say things like so I assume that the facts are X and he would sit there and nod and, you know, there was -- I can recall a time where we needed to confirm some facts.
We had to call a recess so that our lawyers could go out in the hallway and talk to the requester and their counsel who are sitting right there in front of us and then come back and relay the information to us and, you know, it was like a game of telephone.
This obviously was not very efficient and then there was the time when Don McGahn, before he was a Commissioner, was sitting out there and scrolled something on a piece of paper and raised it over to the secretary and slapped it on her desk and said here is a ex parte comment and I want you to give it the Commissioners -- I think -- I also remember the bit coin AO where I actually had that colloquy with the lawyer, and he admitted that he didn't actually know that much about the technology and was not in a position to really give us the information that we need.
So, I agree with the chair that on a -- just on a -- I had an originally envisioned this process as a way that we -- I thought, well, the requester is really going to be the only person who is going to be in mow session of the facts -- 
possession of the facts.
That has not turned out to be true.
There are times when we need facts from other people.
And it is also become more of an opportunity for advocacy and for arguments on the law, because the requesters -- 
particularly when they come with their lawyers they -- they actually effectively make an oral argument and we make important legal decisions in these AOs, as everyone says and the boilerplate at the end, any person involved in any specific transaction or activity with is indistinguishable in all material aspects -- they rely on -- so, that is a cumbersome way of saying other people -- 
and as came up earlier today, talking about the Newt watch opinion, we do establish legal principles that carry on sometimes for years through the AO process.
And I -- in part because we often don't get drafts out late and sometimes moments before the meeting, drafts would be circulated and no way for anybody on the outside to comment on that.
And sometimes because issues come up in the course of the discussion where I think it really would be helpful to hear from people with a different perspective.
I doubt if it would actually happen all that often.
And I suspect that what would happen would be that in -- when we were considering issues that have sort of more wide-ranging impact, we would get somebody like our friend Paul Ryan, who is in the audience today, CLC, I don't know who the counterpart is at CC -- 
>> Stephen Kline out there -- 
>> There you go.
Maybe Stephen Kline would like to do that, too, and I think that would be helpful.
It would be helpful to me to hear from other experienced lawyers out there who are knowledgeable in the field.
Because I don't presume to know everything or to be able to think about every possible ramifications.
I don't think our terrific staff even can say that they will in all instances always think of absolutely everything that could come up, every ramification, every possible consequence.
I really think there is no down side to allowing people the opportunity to come in and have a few minutes to express their views, and I would personally find it very helpful to my decision-making.
I think there are instances where we're heading for a deadlock, where perhaps having an outside perspective would be helpful to resolving that deadlock and would help me to get to yes in a case where I had reservations and might otherwise vote no.
For my colleagues who are more skeptical and think maybe it won't be so beneficial to them, I would ask you again in another exercise of collegiality to consider the fact that some of us think it would be very helpful to us and I don't think, you know, we can give people time limits.
Five minutes, whatever it is, so that it doesn't drag out the process too long, but I do think and as I said, my upon VS evolved on this.
I didn't initially think this would be important but have come to think it is very important and would be beneficial and helpful to commissioners, and I think we can rely on people to be respectful of each other -- 
>> I think it was an excellent piece of work, I greatly appreciate it. 
In terms of -- in laying out the pros and cons, I could not at this time support a policy extending the appearance -- the ability to appear before the Commission on advisory opinions to third parties.
My starting point on this is the -- is the statute in our --
in a section which was formerly 447-F.
I don't know what the new -- 
what the new provision is so I will just refer to the old one.
There is a provision, subsection-B, built into it, specifically to guard the advisory opinion process against the possibility of them turning into quasi-wide proceedings.
It says in -- any rule of law which is not stated in this act or in chapter 95 or chapter 96, Title 26, imposed by the only as a -- 438-D of this title.
My concern is setting up a process which turns advisory opinions into, like I said, a quasi-rule-making process.
And the cases that were cited by Chair Ravel, bit coin and revolution messaging, I think actually -- while on the one hand, certainly additional information on those would have been helpful.
I think both of those were actual examples of where rule makes in those arenas would actually be helpful, because then we could start considering larger and much broader considerations of policy, and getting into the facts and how they would be applied broadly, but at that point, we go so far beyond the limited facts of the presentation that are set forth by an advisory opinion requester that I think that we are on the verge of running afoul of what the statute limits us to.
I mean, I agree with what my colleague, Commissioner Weintraub said about it, it would certainly be helpful.
I think there are a lot of times when, you know -- it's always helpful to have more information from more sources.
But it's not really, you know, in an oral argument in an actual case, you have two sides that have a concrete interest in the outcome.
This would be in many case -- 
if we set up a policy where third-party requesters could come in, you have the individual with the concrete interest, who is setting forth specific facts about what they would like to do and then someone else can kind of weigh in who doesn't necessarily have a concrete interest.
And I'm not sure that providing that as kind of a matter of right -- if we haven't crossed the line, we would be getting, I think, awfully close to setting up kind of a -- like I said, quasi-rule-making procedure, and I wouldn't be comfortable with that and I would worry that the requester would lose control of their own request and they are entitled to be able to present to us the facts as they -- and they can rely, and we rely on their presentation of the facts as accurate and their protection only extends insofar as those facts are, indeed, the case.
But in the interest of collegiality, I do think that there may be circumstances on a case-by-case basis, where if someone wanted to submit a request, where it actually would be, I think, helpful.
I think one of the circumstances that I -- might, at least for me, trigger an interest in concreteness is the -- cases involving preemption of state law.
I think in those sorts of cases, the outcome has have very concrete impact on -- in that case, the state and their ability to enforce or if we, depending on how we rule, not be able to enforce their laws.
In that sort of an instance, I think there may be a valid reason for the Commission to allow a third-party commenter, because then it is not just a -- just someone who wants to opine on the wisdom or lack thereof of a particular proposal, but they are impacted in a direct and significant way.
I thought that was a very useful example that was put in there.
So, I'm open to, and I can't conceive of all of the circumstances off of the top of my head where I think where a third-party commenter being able to speak before the Commission would be appropriate, but I would certainly -- I'm open to kind of a case-by-case where the Commission decides.
I think, as we often say, you know, four Commissioners, we can declare Thursday is Wednesday.
We -- 
>> I don't think we can actually do that.
>> For our purposes -- we have meetings that -- 
>> Right.
>> We say that a meeting that happened -- we keep executive sessions open for multiple days. 
So, I think that where I am right now, I'm not prepared to support a policy that provides third-party commenters the ability to request on, you know, on kind of on an open-ended basis, but I am willing to consider on a case-by-case basis, if we can get a majority in allowing requesters, if the issue, I think, rises to the level where I think that we're not tripping that kind of threshold into entering into a quasi-rulemaking and that one example I thought was on the preemption issue.
>> I appreciate that willingness, but I do say, I mean, sort of a caveat, and I also understand how you have narrowed it, but I would suggest that unfortunately, sort of where we are with regard to rulemakings is that have had one, as I understand, of any significance in a number of years, and people actually do rely on these matters, and, for example, in the bit coin case, it was said by one of the Commissioners right after that that it was applicable to all contributions and it was in the "wall street journal" and I think even the Commissioners are utilizing our AO decisions as to indicate that there is sort of an open kind of rule that is impacting others.
I'm not saying that was inappropriate.
Because the fact is that on some of these technology issues, in particular, but in other matters as well, they do have consequential ramifications for everyone, and you don't have to have the exact same fact pattern of what kind of an entity you are to have those consequential impacts.
For example, about issues of the internet disclaimers or issues of, you know, other kinds of technology that could be usable.
So, I would hope that if we ask counsel perhaps to come back with another policy, which is, I assume, you would be amenable to that, or did you just want to do it ad hoc?
>> Well, at this point, I -- I mean, if you sought -- I wouldn't support a motion but obviously you could request if you wanted counsel to draft up a proposal, I'm not going to say you may not do that.
You always have the ability.
>> I understand.
I am just trying to figure out how we can go forward.
>> And, if you -- if you were to, you know, like I said, I would not foreclose any of my colleagues from seeking of trying to craft policies that you think might address each other's concerns and that make a run at us, I mean, that's always permissible.
But at this point, in my looking at it, I'm probably at this point only comfortable with a -- ad hoc basis of if someone wants to make a request of the Commission, and which I think they can do anyway, if they want a request to be able to testify before the Commission, you know, and if, you know, we had four votes to do that, I -- I would be willing to consider the request, and consider whether I felt that was appropriate in light of the nature of the request and also in light of what I think is a limit on what we can do in the advisory opinion process, but that's as far as I'm willing to go at this particular point.
>> Commissioner Weintraub.
>> I want to be very clear on this point.
What you are suggesting, because people are listening and they may be interested in trying to avail themselves of this, is that if somebody out there feels that they would like to address the Commission on an AO, that they should send us a letter and make that request and somebody could make a motion at the table to allow them to appear and then if there are four votes, they can.
And, I mean, it is going to be awkward for people because they are going to have to know whether to show up or not.
For folks that are local, that's easy.
For folks who are not local, that might be a little bit harder for them.
>> Right.
I think under our current procedures, that's already permitted.
I mean, we had -- I think it was the last open meetingmeeting, we had counsel for one of the audited committees who made a request to speak and none of us said that you have -- 
>> I said I thought we needed a procedure, you may recall.
I actually -- 
>> But we agreed on -- I don't remember if it was without objection or if we made a motion on that, but we allowed him to speak, and he was well within his rights.
Wrote to us and said I want to speak.
We didn't conclude that he had a right to, but we allowed him to speak.
I don't think that there is anything -- I think within the current way in which we operate, if someone wants to make that request.
At this particular point, I don't think -- I couldn't give them any promises.
They -- you know, if they wanted to make such a request and -- but before -- the west coast, it would probably be wise for them to get a sense of where the Commission is.
>> I don't know how they would get that.
>> Get a cheap flight.
>> And I actually do think it is important for us and this is why I had some concerns in that particular instance, you know, everybody should be on the same playing field.
This is something that we are going to afford people, then it should be something that is at least theoretically available to anybody that wants -- it doesn't mean we would say yes every time.
Ever should know that it is possible for them to ask and that it might be granted.
That was my concern about that particular instance, that I was concerned that other people would read our regulations and say, oh, it doesn't look like I have the opportunity to appear so I'm not going to show up or make that request.
I think we need to be clear with people so that they know to make the request.
>> The way I view it for myself is that I think that the number of cases where I think it would be appropriate is probably pretty narrow.
And I think I probably indicated in what I just said.
So, you know, speaking for myself, I wouldn't envision under the circumstances as I currently understand them and as I have seen things implied, I wouldn't envision granting that request very frequently.
I think that -- I think for me, I think it really -- it is -- 
the advisory opinion process is about the requester, and obviously, anybody can write in and we often do get comments about drafts and comments about requests, and those are often very helpful.
And as part of that, if they wish to make that request, that's fine.
But I -- I wouldn't envision myself granting it very often, but I think that -- but I don't want to also foreclose circumstances where I think it may be appropriate for us to hear from a third party.
>> I guess what people who are listening should take from this is that if somebody wants to have that opportunity, they should ask for it.
And a -- if there is at least one commissioner who things they ought to have it, a motion at the table which may or may not get four votes.
>> I think that is already available.
>> I also, I just want to comment, because I did speak to the issue raised in the letter we received with respect to this matter today, that sort of increasing source of frustration to me, which is, and this is not, you know, at all due to any negligence on the part of the Office of General Counsel, this has to do with the Commission itself, but we often do not have blue drafts that are about these requests.
These AO requests until the day before of a meeting, and that -- 
>> Or the day of.
Or the day of.
>> Or sometimes the day of, which makes it absolutely impossible for the public to be able to write in those -- with those comments.
And I believe that that is in derogation of the open meeting and public meeting rules that exist and -- of them being able to provide us of that thoughtful information that might help us in making decisions.
I appreciate your position.
Obviously, you know, that's your right and your view, but essentially what we have set up for people is a system where it is impossible for them to weigh in on decisions that are really important, really important for this community that is interested in political issues, and I think that that is really sort of an abdication of our obligations to the public that we serve.
>> I would just add on the issue of timeliness, I think that we have gotten a lot better in terms of getting initial drafts out there.
There is the difference between a draft.
I think ODC has done a very good job of getting drafts up to us so we can consider these things in a timely matter.
The issue is what goes blue then.
If we are satisfied -- if we think an analysis needs to be changed, that falls on us.
One thing that I think is difficult to always avoid is that as drafts go public, as we get comments back, and then as there is kind of a back and forth between offices, I think in some ways it is kind of baked into the cake that there is going to be -- not in all cases, but in some cases, there is going to be some last-minute drafting and negotiating, if for no other reason sometimes we come to the table and have to kind of on the fly, you know, negotiate with each other, sometimes in light of what we learn from a requester.
So, I just want to state that I certainly understand that we want to give as much time for people to comment as possible, but I think -- but I don't want to make it appear as if I think, you know, counsel is doing their job and getting us initial drafts and getting something on paper for us, and also that there is something untoward about the fact that we do negotiate to try to reach a consensus before meetings.
>> Commissioner Weintraub.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
I agree with that entirely, and that's exactly why it would be beneficial to allow people to come in and comment because we do come up with last-minute solutions and fixes and that's a good thing for us to try and work together and say, well, okay.
What if we change this and what if we change that phrase and there have been those times when the meeting start was delayed because two Commissioners were out in the hallway red penciling something and trying to come up with a language that might work to get four votes.
That's a good thing.
It is a good thing for us to do that.
It is a good thing for us to try up until the last second to try to get an agreement -- I think everyone benefits by that.
Given that that is baked into the process, as you say, that is why it would be beneficial to be able to have -- I'm repeating myself -- the benefit of other people's thoughts before we take that vote in case as we're doing that last-minute scramble, we're missing something.
Because I, as I said, I don't assume that I'm going to think of everything and somebody else who is sitting there coolly sitting in the audience, might say you didn't think of this and there is no way for them to communicate that to us and it might, indeed, be something that we all say, head smack, uh-oh, we didn't think of that and we should have.
We are denying ourselves the opportunity to improve our product.
>> Are there any other comments?
Commissioner Hunter.
>> Thank you.
I believe that the example that we were just discussing a few minutes ago, Mr. Dan Backer, here about an audit, lawyer for the committee being audited.
More akin to a requester of an AO wanting to speak about the request.
Less than a third party -- I didn't have any concern allowing the lawyer for the audited committee to speak to the Commission.
I think what is before us today is very different than that and I agree with much of what the Vice Chair has said.
This, I think, allowing third parties to come up and speak to AOs would turn it more into a rule-making process which, of course, is prohibited under the statute, and as pointed out in the memo from the Office of General Counsel on page 4, advisory opinion request must relate to quote a specific transaction or activity that the requesting person plans to undertake.
It may not pose general question, interpretation or pertain to the activities of third parties.
The process is for requesters.
And requesters are coming to the Commission and saying, hey, I would like to do this.
And I need to know from the Commission if it is permissible under campaign finance law and regulation, and as I think if we looked at the stats here, we would find that the number of advisory opinion requests have gone down over recent years, and I think part of that is because it's not -- it's not an easy thing to come here and try to get four votes from this place and I think adding another layer to the mix will discourage people from requesting advisory opinions, and I think that's the last thing we want to do because we have often said or heard in the enforcement context sometimes people will say in closed meetings, well, this person could have just come in and asked for an advisory opinion, why didn't they do that?
Because it takes a lot of time and money and there is no guarantee that you are going to get four votes for anything and I think adding this layer to the mix would make it even less likely that people would come in and ask us to sign on to something before they engage in that conduct. 
>> Commissioner Weintraub.
>> The only thing I would say in response to that, maybe we could try it as a pilot project and see.
Some Commissioners are convinced that it could discourage people and I hear that.
But we could try it with a sunset provision and see whether we think after trying it it is helpful, not helpful, discouraging people, not discouraging people.
The fact that advisory opinions have declined I think is because people don't have a lot of faith in us, in our ability to get to four votes.
That is why people are not asking.
It is not I think because they're afraid somebody else is going to weigh in on their opinion and try to talk us out of it.
As I said, I actually think it would be helpful in getting us to four votes more often rather than less often, personally -- 
we could try it.
>> Would you like to make a motion?
>> I don't want to foreclose any -- 
>> I don't -- is there any further discussion?
>> I guess the only -- I mean, is there a motion?
>> No, there isn't a motion.
>> Agenda document before us that has -- that kind of lays out options.
I didn't know whether or not --
if someone wanted to vote on something.
My thoughts, I have expressed them, I couldn't support a motion on that.
But if someone wanted to make one.
>> What I would -- again in the interest, and I have said this in other context.
I don't want to ask our lawyers to spin their wheels and start drafting something that has no chance of success.
The motion I would contemplate, we direct the Office of General Counsel to taking into account all of the concerns that were raised here at the table and all of the views that they take a crack at actually drafting a revised policy on advisory opinion procedure, in accordance with the proposals that they have suggested and in accordance with what we have talked about at the table and while I wasn't originally contemplating this, I would be happy to incorporate some type of an automatic sunset provision.
Try it for a year, and see if we think it is working or if it is making things more difficult or it is making things more helpful.
You know, I think -- we have done that in other instances and if it would make you happier, we could make it an automatic sunset so that it would take four votes to prolong it beyond that initial trial period.
The question is, I don't want to ask them to do that drafting if you guys are already decided that there is no circumstances that you're going to be supportive of that.
>> That's a motion and so we can tell by a vote.
>> Okay.
>> Right.
>> I make that motion.
>> Okay.
Thank you. 
>> Do you understand that?
You got that madam Secretary?
>> Yes, I did.
>> Any discussion on the motion.
>> I have trepidation about this without more -- I mean, if you look at this, it says -- 
they have several concerns.
I have several concerns, too.
Advisory opinion situation -- 
it is a narrow question, it is anybody can ask us for an opinion.
You don't have to have a lawyer as we learned today.
And we try and do the best we can with it.
I -- when I first got on the Commission, I like Commissioner Weintraub, there were times when you just wanted to request the requester's lawyer if there was just one fact -- there was this there scurry out to the men's or lady's room, and somehow bump into each other --
>> Don't say it was an ex parte, because it wasn't.
>> In any event, the -- asked for us to reconsider -- 
>> Did you break the chair?
>> No. 
Everything is okay.
>> We did initiate a protocol whereby the counsel for the requester could actually come before us, and at the same time, all of that was to be permitted was to answer a question or two that we had generally about the facts so that we could better understand it.
Then, as time has gone on, we have gravitated from that to the point where the council automatically takes a seat and feels compelled to be in a position to argue the case.
And then we went a little farther this morning, I think, when it got close to talking about how to negotiate yes or maybe some of the Commissioners already don't think that is the direction we ought to be going.
I think before we start doing this, we ought to look a little more careful about what we want out of the advisory opinion process.
I can see where a requester now, poor little guy walks in and has a request and next thing you know somebody is there with their counsel and somebody is calling you in and we have three people in the audience who want to speak and have written in already and they may or may not have an expertise or particular ax to grind when we're here all day trying to -- when all there was was a narrow question, confined to a narrow set of facts.
I have trepidation about that until we think amongst our sells what we want the Jen counsel to do rather than have them make up an approach.
>> Mr. Vice Chair.
>> I think we're probably trying to draw this to a close.
I wanted to comment, Commissioner Walther's comments, triggered in my mind an issue that I thought about earl earlier, even today, technological innovation presented before us in an advisory opinion process.
And, you know, I was -- I started thinking about hypotheticals, what might happen when -- what if there is an upstart?
Who wants to propose an innovative proposal as to, I don't know, how to raise money in small amounts or so forth and give it to certain categories of candidates.
That cuts in on the business of a more well-healed player who has a large marketshare in whatever that market might be and has -- let's assume in the first instance, the requester is doing it without counsel's help and a requester -- third party comes in with sophisticated counsel, lots of money and resources at their disposal, and you can imagine a case -- what you were addressing that could overwhelm the requester and it could be used as a process for actually squelching or chilling or somehow preventing innovators from being able to get off the ground because, you know, people with opposing interests might want to come in and try to kind of strangle that in the cradle.
That is another concern about granting it on a just kind of an as a -- basis that I have.
But, yeah.
Your concerns that you raised on that point triggered that thought in my mind that I had previously.
>> Commissioner Weintraub.
>> I mean, obviously we could put in a requirement that it has to get a certain number of Commissioners to agree that it is appropriate to have that particular person come and address the Commission.
It could also work in the opposite way.
We could have people who come in just, you know, not dissimilar to one of our requesters today, don't have a lawyer, doing it pro se, someone in the election law community and knows more about the interactions between the law and perhaps new technologies and is up on all of the AOs in the process might decide to come in and be that person's white knight and say I would like to come and try and flush out the legal arguments why I think this guy's proposal is good and would be helpful.
I think it would work in either direction, but as I said, we won't know unless we try. 
>> All right.
Call the question.
There is a motion on the floor.
Do you have that motion, Madam Secretary?
>> Yes, I do.
>> All right.
>> Thank you.
If there is no further discussion, all of those in favor indicate by saying aye?
>> Aye -- 
>> All of those opposed?
>> No.
>> No -- 
>> Sorry, I -- 
>> There was a lot of discussion, I forgot what the motion was.
>> We are going to direct counsel to draft up a policy.
>> No worries.
So that motion fails to -- in favor myself, and Commissioner Weintraub, and opposed Commissioner Walther, Commissioner Goodman, Commissioner Hunter, and Vice Chair Petersen.
>>> Next item item number IX.
We have before us Mr. Knop and Adav of the Office of General Counsel.
Would you like to make a presentation?
Thank you.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair and good morning or good afternoon, Commissioners.
Commission received a petition for rulemaking September 11th from last year, an organization called level the playing field.
Commissioner requested that the commission open a rulemaking to advise the regulation concerning the selection criteria used to determine participation in candidate debates by debate sponsors.
A notice of availability regarding this petition published in the Federal Register on November 14th of last year.
That notice provided information regarding how to obtain a copy of the petition, and sought comment.
Commission received approximately 1,260 comments and the next step is for the Commission to decide whether or not to open a rulemaking in response to the petition.
Thank you.
>> Thank you very much.
Any questions of counsel to Mr. Knop?
Any comments with respect to this matter?
Mr. Vice Chair.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
Similar petition came before us back in I believe, 2009.
And I voted against moving forward on a rulemaking on that and I think many of the same reasons that I cited there are I think still applicable here.
I think that the requester sets forth -- it was a very interesting request and sets forth potential alternative criteria to what is maybe traditionally used by organizations that are putting on debates and the criteria they set forth, there is nothing that prohibits an organization from deciding to use the criteria that they would recommend and nothing in our regulations that requires that polling data be used as well.
These are still open questions.
I think that -- I would be reluctant to open up our rules and dictate with more specificity.
I think our concern is less about ensuring as many people get on the debate stage as possible.
Even though that is a larger policy issue that concerns us all as Americans, how many or how few we think is useful on the main stage.
Our role is looking at what does or does not trigger a contribution to those participating.
In light of that narrow concern that we have, I don't see that our current regs are problematic on that front.
I'm reluctant to reopen our debate regulations, and I think that the reasons that I cited back in 2009 are still in force now and so that's where I am right now.
>> Thank you.
Let me weigh in on this, because I don't agree with your position.
Polling thresholds in 2009 were once a valid, fair, and unbiased way to determine eligibility for debates to ensure that there was no unfair corporate promotion.
We know now that things have changed in the last couple of years.
Even -- and, you know, I have something here from Nate Silver, himself, who uses polling said that the world may have a polling problem, and it is harder to find an election in which polls did all that well and he gave a number of examples.
The Scottish independence referendum.
The 2014 U.S. mid terms, the Israeli legislative election and the 2012 presidential election, and this came from Politico.
And more recently a "New York Times" article with respect to England as well.
I think it is within our purview and something we need to be cognizant of.
Our obligation, when it comes before us, is to make a decision about whether it is fair and whether clearly the need to have representation from third party candidates and those who might not actually make it to the polls for whatever reason, but may actually be viable candidates, I think it is something that is within our purview and something that we should try to ensure and so for those reasons I would disagree with the recommendation from counsel and I think we should initiate a rulemaking. 
Commissioner Weintraub.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
I also think we ought to initiate a rulemaking.
I don't think we ought to try to micro manage the debate criteria or process, but I think perhaps we could tweak the rules.
Not necessarily exactly the way this petitioner has suggested.
But if we open up a rulemaking process we could get comments and see whether there is a way that the rules could be tweaked in a way they could be more inclusive and encouraging of greater political participation which I think is a really important goal.
I know everyone at the table talks about their desire to strengthen party organizations and I -- I do think party organizations are important for our democracy, but the reality is -- and I think my source here is a pew poll, pew Research Center, based on 2014 data, 39% identify as independents, 32% as democrats, and 23% as republicans.
There are more people who identify and I think it is particular true amongst younger people, amongst the millennial generation, increasing number of people that don't identify with either party.
They register as independents if they register.
Identify themselves as independents, and may not feel like a debate between a republican and democrat as something that they are particularly engaged in or is going to encourage them to tune in and get involved and to get out and vote and I think those are all important concerns for us.
I'm not -- I don't know what would happen at the end of the process, but I do think it could -- we haven't revisited the debate rules in a long time, and I think maybe it is time for us to do so.
So, I -- I -- with all due respect to counsel, I think we ought to open a rulemaking.
>> Any other comments?
I'm sorry.
Mr. Goodman.
>> I just want to comment.
Debate regulations are a rule put in place candidates of certain political events, expenditure, but now coordinated expenditure rule which could be a contribution.
The purpose of our rule, laudatory to encourage fairness and representativeness -- they are not the principle focus of this regulation.
This regulation is targeted at preventing corruption and corporate contributions, things styled as debates don't become corporate sponsored ralles for one or two candidates alone.
All -- have a broad set of objective criteria, and I'm -- 
and these criteria we have have been in place for a long time and I am not aware of any case where anyone alleged or proved sponsor ship of debate under THES regs gave rise to the corporate circumvention rule --
these rules are working pretty well.
They have for a period of time.
And for that reason I don't support reopening them.
>> Thank you.
Commissioner Weintraub.
>> Sorry, don't want to jump the line if Commissioner Hunter -- 
>> I missed your -- 
>> You were looking in my direction and isn't see her.
Quick response to that.
I hear what you are saying.
But to put it in -- to re-frame what I said in that kind of language, I think what the petitioner is suggesting is that by something rules that allow the sponsors of the debate to effectively eliminate everybody except the republican and the democratic nominee, that this is effectively a corporate contribution.
It is an odd kind of corporate contribution to both parties, but there are people who contribute to both parties.
I think it -- it could fit into that framework.
I appreciate your -- to the narrow purposes of the rule.
That is a perfectly fair comment, but I do think the same concerns could be viewed in that.
>> Commissioner Hunter.
>> I would like to associate myself with the comments of the Vice Chair and Commissioner Goodman and specifically as you know in regulation, it says that staging organizations must use pre-established objective criteria to determine which candidates may participate.
There is nothing in there about poll numbers.
That is just what one organization decided to use.
And for general election debates, organizations shall not use nomination by a particular political party as the sole objective criterion to determine whether to include a candidate in a debate.
There is nothing in the regs that say, that favor, and actually to the contrary, specifically they can't say only the republican nominee and the democrat nominee are able to participate.
And so I agree, there is already objective criteria established and there is no need to open a rule-making at this time.
>> Okay.
So, hearing -- Commissioner Walther.
>> I have the same concerns at this point about trying to engage in a rule-making to get a particular objective, ie maybe more people there.
We are not the social engineers or should try to be.
Times have changed and everything else seems to be changing around us sometimes.
But I don't think that really -- we are going to have to -- to what our obligation is here and that is my concern and I also think given the situation to try to have a rulemaking on the eve of a very important presidential election and everything, might make it pretty hard and we would be trying to decide this thing right in the middle, try to change the playing field, to me, would be something I'm not sure would be a great idea.
>> Commissioner Weintraub >> We could always delay the implementation date until the 2020 election or the, you know, since other people have debates besides presidents.
The 2018 election.
>> All right.
Hearing no further comment, there is -- is there a motion.
>> I will make a motion.
I can see the way it is going but I will make it anyway.
I move that the Commission open a rulemaking and direct the Office of General Counsel to draft a notice of proposed rulemaking in response to the petition for rulemaking filed September 11th, 2014, on behalf of level the playing fields.
>> Do you have the motion?
>> Yes, I do.
>> You have all heard the motion.
Is there any discussion?
Hearing no discussion.
All in favor indicate by saying aye?
>> Aye.
Aye.
>> All opposed indicate by saying no?
>> No.
>> No.
>> No.
>> Madam Secretary that motion fails by a vote of two ayes, commissioner Weintraub and Ravel voting aye and against Commissioner Walther, Commissioner Goodman, Hunter, and Vice Chair Petersen voting no.
All right.
The next -- yes.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to inquire with council first in terms of next procedural steps would it be helpful for us to make a motion, since it appears there are four who are opposed to opening up a rule-making, a vote to instruct council to prepare an appropriate notice of disposition in light of the vote that we have had here?
>> Commission can do that -- 
>> What is the next procedural step or is there -- 
>> The last time this came up, the Commission did make a motion to -- notice of disposition that reflected the views of Commissioners that voted not to proceed with the rulemaking.
That is what happened last time.
>> It is up to you.
>> If that would be the pleasure of those who voted no, I would be happy to -- you said it much better than I probably would have.
I will take what -- if I can take what Mr. Noti said and convert that into a motion or would we need to repeat that?
>> I think we have it on tape and I can take it from there.
>> So moved.
>> On that motion -- on that so moved -- 
>> Sorry, I was conferring with my staff for a moment.
The motion is to direct -- 
>> Direct -- basically to direct Office of General Counsel to craft an appropriate notice of disposition that reflects the views of those who voted against opening a rulemaking.
>> All right.
>> All right.
Everyone has that understanding?
All of those in favor of this motion please indicate by saying aye?
>> All of those opposed?
>> So, Madam Secretary, that motion passes by a vote of 4-2.
Commissioners Goodman, Hunter, Vice Chair Petersen and Commissioner Walther voting yes and Commissioner Weintraub and Ravel voting no.
The next item on the agenda is item 10, draft notice of availability on reg 2015-3, contributions from corporations and other organizations to political committees.
And we have with us today bob Knop from OGC, and Shawn wright in his first appearance as a new lawyer in the Office of General Counsel.
Welcome, it is very good to see you. 
>> Thank you.
>> Good afternoon.
Agenda document 1536-A, TRAFT notice of availability in response to a petition for rulemaking submitted by Make Your Laws PAC, Inc., Make Your Laws Advocacy incorporated.
Petition for rulemaking asks the commission to modify regulations requiring discrow discrow -- disclosure -- in particular the petition asks the commission to establish a new rule requiring that any person other than a natural person contributing an aggregate of more than $1,000 in any calendar year, directly or indirectly, must do so subject to certain reporting requirements.
Ask the Commission to require that the accounts disclose the original source of all election related contributions and expenditures -- the draft notice of availability seeks comment on the petition for rulemaking and provides instructions to the public on how to submit to the Commission.
The Office of General Counsel has examined the petition and determined that it meets all appleable requirements.
If the commission approves, Office of General Counsel requests authority to make any technical and conforming changes.
Thank you, and I'm happy to address any questions that you may have.
>> Thank you very much for your excellent presentation.
Any questions of counsel?
>> Is this your first presentation?
>> It is.
>> Welcome, and thank you.
>> Thank you, honor to be here.
>> Mr. Vice Chair.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
Perhaps to the relief or chagrin to shows here in the --
in the audience, I don't anticipate any -- very nice job on the presentation.
It was nice making your acquaintance yesterday when you came by my office.
I think that these are -- we will vote these out.
It is -- I believe that's are adminadmin -- being that we are on the eve of August, that month can be -- not only in this town, but others outside of that, we currently have 60 days.
I'm just wondering whether or not -- I know that we have had other cases where we have had 90 days, in light of the fact that August is almost upon us that 90 days might make more sense for whatever reason.
>> The Commission can pick whatever time period it wants.
We looked at this not for these petitions but for a prior petition, went back and looked for the last 10 to 15 years to see what the comment periods were.
Usually 30 days, sometimes 60 days.
More recently usually 60 days.
The only 90 day, I think was the recent ANPRM.
I could be wrong about that.
30, 60, 90.
>> I am just raising that.
Just knowing that -- how August works around this town.
>> Commissioner Weintraub -- 
>> I'm happy to support that suggestion.
>> Okay.
>> Okay.
Any other comments or questions?
All right.
Okay.
Is there a motion?
>> I would be happy to make one.
>> Mr. Vice Chair.
>> Respect to the draft notice of availability on regulation 2015-03, which is -- relates to contributions from corporations and other organizations to political committees, that we approve agenda document number 15-36-A, except that we change the comment period from 60 to 90 days, and do you need authorization for technical and conforming -- and you get that as well.
>> Any questions about that?
>> When do you expect this to go into the Federal Register?
Will it take a week, two, three?
What's the process here?
>> Usually a few days.
>> A few days.
>> Okay.
>> All right.
So, hearing none, is there a --
all of those in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye?
[Chorus of Ayes]
>> Okay.
Madam Secretary, that motion has five votes and commissioner Walther stepped out, so I would ask that we, although it obviously will have passed no matter what the -- what the vote is of Commissioner Walther, but I ask that he can be permitted to submit his vote later today.
>> There is a provision in our directives for him to do so.
That will be fine.
>> Thank you very much. 
The next item is item number 11, draft notice of availability on reg 2015-4, independent spending by corporations, labor organizations, foreign nationals and certain political committees citizens united.
And we have with us Esther Gyory and Amy Rothstein of the Office of General Counsel and of course Mr. Noti.
>> Thank you chair and good afternoon Commissioners.
Draft notice of availability in response to two petitions of rulemaking submitted by Make Your Laws PAC, Inc., and Make Your Laws Advocacy Inc and Craig Holman and public citizen.
Petition asks the commission, new rules, revise existing rules, concerning one disclosure of -- two, election related spending by foreign nationals.
Three solicitations of corporate and labor organization employees and members, and four the independence of expenditures made by independent expenditure only political committees and accounts.
Draft notice of -- if the Commission approves a draft notice of availability, Office of General Counsel requests authority to make any technical and conforming changes.
Thank you and I would be happy to address any questions that you may have.
>> Commissioner Hunter.
>> Is this identical to the petition submitted by Chair Ravel and Commissioner Weintraub on June 8th, 2015?
>> The substance is.
There may be minor differences, but the substance of what the petitions ask for is.
>> There are minor differences.
>> There may be.
I think that both of the new petitioners added information sort of preliminary introductory information about themselves, and what they're doing.
So, if you look, you -- it identifies that it is Craig Holman and public citizen and what they're doing and there may be other things like that.
I know that the original petitions that were considered in Reg 2015-02, referred to those petitioners and there might be places in the new petitions where language wasn't, you know, pronouns weren't changing or something like that.
Substance is the same.
>> My petition, my understanding is that this petition was withdrawn by the Commissioners on I believe, June 25th, is that correct?
>> I don't recall the date but, yes, it was withdrawn.
>> Thank you.
>> Mr. Vice Chair.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
I will make the same motion relative to the 90 days versus 60.
In terms of giving technical and conforming edits, we can't edit the actual -- I notice in the public citizen one, they left in the language we -- for the sake clarity, we want to make sure that we are not making Mr. Holman an honorary member of the Commission, just for the sake of public clarity.
I will move approval of this document, which is agenda document 15-35-A, which is a draft notice of availability on regulation 2015-04, relating to independent spending by corporations, labor organizations, foreign nationals and certain political committees, and that we change the 60-day comment period to a 90-day comment period and authorize general counsel to make technical and conforming edits that may be required.
>> Thank you.
Madam Secretary, do you have the motion?
Any questions or comments with respect to the motion?
All right.
Hearing none, all of those in favor please indicate by saying aye?
[Chorus of Ayes]
>> Okay.
Madam Secretary, that motion passed by five votes and pursuant to the directive, Commissioner Walther will submit his vote at a later time.
>> Madam Chair.
I was afraid to say anything before the vote, but I just will make very briefly want to express my appreciation to the petitioners.
I am pleased to see that so many persons are interested in these important issues and I hope we get a lot of good comments.
>> Thank you.
Well, the next item is item number 13, motion to set priorities and scheduling on pending enforcement matters.
This is Commissioner Walther's item, and Commissioner Walther has apparently stepped out.
So, I don't know whether we should take a brief recess to determine whether -- a couple of minutes -- 
>> Thank you all for your patience.
The next item is motion to set priorities and scheduling on pending enforcement matters, and this is a memorandum that was written by Commissioner Walther and perhaps you would like to present the matter, Commissioner.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair.
This is -- it is all in the memorandum.
Really nothing more to add.
I have been concerned about Commissioner Weintraub is making a proposal with respect to going forward, what we're going to do.
I'm concerned in addition to that, of course, is taking a look at where we are and trying to develop a plan to I think pick up and bring forward some of these cases that have been languishing for some period of time.
It is hard to say as we sit here, well, we're behind, we need to get going on this.
We did that and did that earlier in this meeting, but we have some matters behind us and I think that the only way to make it easy to get the point across was to have the time -- 
take the time to put a chart together to show where we are and where we are not.
In my own opinion, I think we're way behind the eight ball in terms of fulfilling our duty to dispose of these matters in a prompt manner.
Now having said that, the feeling here is to go forward and not try to worry about all of the various reasons why why we're where we are.
We have matters pending before us with nothing for us to do but to vote, for three years, two years, over a year.
All they have to do is come before us and we can vote, yes, no, deadlock, but there is very few issues there that are statute of limitation sensitive.
This is not designed to interfere with anything that is a statute of limitation sensitive or maybe if there were a case, and has been the case, stay a case depending on the collateral criminal matter or potential criminal matter, in this, under directive 10, all we have to do is move to take this matter up or change the order.
Here I'm talking mostly about age.
Some of these have been sitting here for so darn long that I think it is important to develop a plan.
My thought would be that we would commit to resolving this deadlock and give ourselves deadlines just like Commissioner Weintraub wants to do with respect to adopting a policy going forward.
This is to adopt a policy to allow us to go forward without this baggage.
We have 73 matters that are pending.
Some of them over three years, some over two years, with nothing left for us to do but meet and vote.
We can solve this problem.
All we have to do is meet and vote.
It takes -- it will take a commitment on our part to actually say yes.
We are going to dispose of these.
And let's take a look at how fast we have been going and get it done.
And, so, that's -- that's the reason why I put it together.
I would like to get the support for that.
I made a suggestion that we ought to meet at least twice a week for a number of weeks and see how fast we are able to do this.
And there was a time when we did this a few years ago and we got the backlog behind us but it wasn't a -- that is the theory.
Not much more to say.
All of the things Commissioner Weintraub said today about all of the various reasons why it is good to move quickly and they're all in here and they do affect the public, they affect the respondent, they affect the complainant, and I think the staff because there has been so many times, a number of times when the same person will come before us once and again and then again and again, waiting for us to actually act.
So actually in the west, old saying, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
I did my best to bring the water to the horse and see what happens.
>> Let me take a prerogative because as Chair, I'm in charge of and have a responsibility for setting the meeting agendas.
So, I would like to say a few things at the inception.
I absolutely agree with the principle that you espoused and that was espoused earlier with respect to the backlog and our requirement and responsibility to act with great deliberation and speed in resolving those matters, both for the public, as well as for all of the people involved in the matters themselves.
And I do think that we can and should be resolving more matters.
But I do want to explain to those members of the public who are here how the agenda has been set.
And is set.
So that there is no misunderstanding.
We always coordinate with the Vice Chairman's office, the Office of General Counsel, and the staff director, and it's --
you know, been at least my practice and other chairs can speak for themselves on this about how to include several matters on the executive session agenda.
One matters that are reflected in some of these -- some of your chart, that have been pending before the Commission for the longest period of time, matters that are easiest to resolve, so that we can dispense with them and be able to advise the people who have made complaints and who are the respondents in a quick fashion because we can resolve those simply because they are less complex, and also to put on at the request often of the Office of General Counsel time-sensitive and statute of limitation imperilled matters.
Sometimes this is a difficult balance to achieve, but example, and, you know, you already said you weren't going to -- you didn't want to not address those issues, but on this week's executive session, nine out of the 22 matters were on the -- added to the executive session agenda because they are statute of limitations imperilled or otherwise time-sensitive for some other reason.
So, you know, I like to say that A, number one, I also want to make very clear because it is not entirely clear from the memorandum that you submitted that the Office of General Counsel is blameless in this matter and that that office has been working, I believe, really hard to get us matters in a timely fashion.
Sometimes with not a lot of time and they're very responsive to us.
I want to make it clear for everybody, for the public, that this is our issue.
This is not the issue of the Office of General Counsel.
It's our responsibility, and it is something that we need to address amongst ourselves.
But I also would like to comment, and I do have some strong feelings about this, that looking at the sort of statistics, we today added more dates, but looking at the statistics, it is not just a question of numbers of meetings that will deal with the backlog, honestly, because as was shown, I mean, last year we had a lot of meetings, but we did not resolve as many matters as have been resolved this year in the same amount of time.
So, much of what is necessary to happen is perhaps, the directive, I believe, that we're going to continue to discuss that Commissioner Weintraub has recommended, and that -- with assistance from Vice Chair Petersen, hopefully we can come to some conclusions about that, but I do not believe that, you know, meeting day-to-day is going to assist us in this process necessary because we do need time to contemplate these matters, to have the discussions necessary in order -- in advance of the meetings in order to resolve them.
I'm -- and hopefully that could be resolved without the necessity of executive sessions that would be precluded given the dates that you're talking about, but in any case, is there a -- I think -- 
>> I would defer to the Vice Chair.
>> Mr. Vice Chair.
>> Initially, let me reiterate something that I said earlier, that I think that the proposed directive from Commissioner Weintraub, as well as this memorandum from Commissioner Walther, have to the extent that we have had, calculus of how we approach matters started to drift more into are we getting the right result and we're not giving -- as adequate attention to timeliness as we should.
I think we have definitely be resensitized to that and as I mentioned earlier that is the reason why I support adding new dates and I share Commissioner Walther's concern about wanting to get these matters done as quickly as possible and I think there are a number here that we hopefully will be able to get done, and I think with the -- 
with the additional dates that we have on the schedule as well, and I mentioned earlier, the -- I know the Chair has been trying to -- in light of the fact that I think greater attention that the both of you have brought to this issue, I think we are going to be able to move quicker and with the efforts being made by the Chair, both in terms of adding dates and in terms of the agenda she is constructing, I think we are going to be able to start moving on some of these matters that may be have hung out there.
There are some matters that have been around for reasons that we have, you know, discussed before, concerns that we have had about -- we have gone through the litigation point and similar respondents and similar legal issues, but I think that -- I think on most, many of these I hope that we can act quickly, and I look forward to working with my colleagues as we try to churn through these between now and the ends of the year.
>> Thank you.
Commissioner Goodman.
>> No, I just want to echo.
We need to work harder.
We said this when this first came up.
We need to work harder.
If I can give a little history, I think we were doing pretty good in 2014, OGC backed up, no blame to anybody.
September 2014, OGC got caught up and moved a lot up here.
We were probably, I don't know, estimating about 35, 40 matters pending in the queue before the commission at that time and then we jumped up to 70 something because a lot came up.
We spent a lot of time last October working on rulemaking.
A lot of time devoted to that.
I had request the Chair to make lighter enforcement agendas to get through the rulemaking voted on in October of last year.
We tried to make up tracks in November and December.
There is, you know, there is slippage.
We're falling behind.
We need to work harder.
I think that is clear to all of us. 
When we started January 2015, 83 matters in our queue up here.
As of April 2015, that -- we had 102 matters pending up here.
These are statistics Mr. Baker has been kind enough to give me.
And here we are in July, and there are 92 matters pending before us right now on circulation.
And, so, there has been some slippage.
Looking holistically at the Commission on resolving matters -- those are all circulation -- looking holistically, we did resolve 122 matters in 2014.
We have resolved 48 this year.
That is not just Commission action, that is enforcement.
You can't always control when you reach the conciliation or when an enforcement litigation ends, so, we have our work cut out for us.
Commissioner Walther, I think the document you put together was quite illuminating and I think we -- I know informally I try to take older matters and promote them first.
I know this Chair does that too.
Sometimes statute of limitations focus us more clearly on matters that need resolution.
I am committed to working hard with the additional meetings because we have our work cut out for us to work these through.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Let me give my view of the statistics and also a comment about the number of matters and why the backlog is greater.
My understanding is that a lot of it depends that cases come in depending on the cycle, and that there are more cases that have come through from the Office of General Counsel based on, you know, timing of what's been there as opposed to last year, but just for the clarity, the numbers that we have are that in 2015, there were 131 matters on the agendas.
The numbers of matters that were resolved were 59.
And the number that were held over was 72.
In 2014, there were 117 matters on the agenda.
57 were resolved.
And 60 were held over.
And in 2014, there were 74 matters resolved on tally, between January and June, and in 2015, 122 resolved on tally between January and June. 
Right, right.
Yeah, that's to clarify about the hold-overs, those are -- 
each time they were held over, it wasn't the number of cases, I'm sorry.
>> Yeah, I would like to add --
>> Unique matters that were held over in 2014, it was 29 unique matters that were held over, and in 2015, 23 unique matters that were held over.
I apologize.
>> Right.
>> At one point -- 
>> At one point or another.
On the current agenda, I believe there are five matters that are being delayed for any significant period of time for reasons that we discussed in executive session.
>> Five -- 
>> Five out of over 100 for any reason at all.
>> Right.
>> So -- anyway, is there -- 
Commissioner Weintraub.
>> I don't have the statistics in front of me so I will not engage on that.
I just want to say that any time we have a substantial number of cases on the docket where we have to put them to the front of the line -- we already know that we have a problem.
We shouldn't be looking at cases at the end of the five year statute of limitations.
We should be -- sometimes it is inevitable.
Sometimes people file a complaint late or there is an audit and that generates a referral internally or other things that delay the onset of it.
But if a complaint is filed reasonably contemporaneously with the action, we are -- 
we're just not doing our job right if we are not resolving them worried about the statute of limitations.
So, I am -- the other point I want to make I view Commissioner Walther's proposal as not a replacement for or an alternative but rather a complimentary to the directive that I am trying to work on.
To use a different metaphor, we have to -- I think what Commissioner Walther is trying to do is dig us out of the hole that we're in.
What I want to make sure is that we don't immediately fall back into another hole as soon as we dig our way out of this one.
I think they're complimentary efforts.
I think Commissioner Walther's proposal would be onerous and inconvenient, yet I'm prepared to support it because I will do anything that might help us move our agenda.
Some debate amongst Commissioners over whether this helps or doesn't.
I will only say in my experience, often people don't focus on the cases until they show up on an executive agenda.
They're all technically on the agenda.
It depends on how you define the agenda, but until they're calendared for a discussion, people tend to put off consideration of it.
Having more meetings where more items calendared has in the past helped.
I have seen it work.
Onerous and inconvenient, but I think it could work.
Could be helpful.
So, I'm prepared to support it. 
>> All right.
Are there any other comments?
Commissioner Walther.
>> I just wanted to -- this is -- it isn't about OGC, it is the matters just before us.
So, I have given my opinion.
I think they do a great job, it is a very tough job trying to please us and actually get it all done, and it is really quite good.
So, I'm just talking here about we have talked about how good we have been doing, but on the other hand, we still need to look and my certain the meetings that we have set up, all well and good, but we have matters still coming and coming and these are still sitting and sitting, and I think unless we kind of give ourselves a boost, we might continue to slip.
I did offer and part of the motion is not to interfere with our ability to take anything out of order because directive 10 we can do that quickly and easily and I'm sure we will.
Statute of limitations of case, Department of Justice wants us to stay a case until they have more evidence or information.
There is a lot of reasons why we could quickly understand that, but at least if we look at this from an age perspective from the ones still sitting here, I think it would do us good.
Appreciate Commissioner Weintraub's support.
I think, you know, she has been steadfast in trying to move stuff along for a long time and hopefully this proposal of hers will see the light of day.
>> Hearing no further discussion on -- on the motion -- the motion is -- the motion that is contained -- in your -- is that the motion Commissioner Walther that's contained in the document?
Do you have a copy of that motion, Madam Secretary?
>> Yes, I do.
>> Okay.
All of those in favor please indicate -- sorry.
Mr. Vice Chair.
>> I won't be able to support the motion.
I want to again say that I appreciate the effort that Commissioner Walther has put forth in doing this and I think this is a spur in the sides of our, you know, trying to think of what would be the right western analogy, in the side of the palomino to get us to start galloping quicker on these matters.
I don't think that your efforts or your commitment on this issue is in vein on this, even though I can't support this particular motion, I think that this will help us resolve matters more timely.
>> I want to echo that.
There are aspects of the -- 
that I actually support.
It is very inclusive, prescriptive procedure going forward.
I can't support all of those prescriptions.
I think we took steps to do some of it by adding some meeting dates earlier today, but I would be happy to discuss with you further those aspects that we can support, whether formally or informally through discussions with the chair's office about prioritizing certain matters.
>> Okay.
You know, surprisingly, I totally agree with you Commissioner Goodman.
>> I don't know why that is such a surprise.
>> I must be tired.
It's not such a surprise.
So, the motion is on the table.
All in favor please indicate by saying aye?
>> Aye.
>> All of those opposed?
>> No -- 
>> The motion fails with Commissioner Walther and Weintraub voting aye and commissioners Goodman, Hunter, Vice Chair Petersen, and Ravel voting no.
So, there is one further item on our agenda.
That is item 14, management and administrative matters.
Mr. Staff director, are there any management or administrative matters that the Commission needs to discuss today?
>> There are no such matters.
>> Thank you very much.
Therefore, this meeting stands adjourned.
[Gavel Pounded] 
>> And we will reconvene -- it is now 20 minutes to 2:00.
We have an executive, continued executive session today.
So I would ask -- we also have a lot of people coming in from 18-F later this afternoon.
So, I would ask that we take a very quick lunch, if possible and come back -- is 2:30 too soon?
It's 23 minutes before two.
Let's shoot for 2:30.
>> 2:15.
>> That's right.
We will shoot for 2:30, but if you are more than 10 minutes late, this -- the wrath of the chair will be visited upon you all.
Thank you. 
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