AO 2020-05 Committee to Elect Mark Charles for President
Contribution limit, primary date, and salary eligibility for independent presidential candidate.
Advisory opinions
Advisory opinions are official Commission responses to questions about how federal campaign finance law applies to specific, factual situations.
This archive contains advisory opinions from 1975 to the present. It also contains documents related to advisory opinions — such as requests, drafts and public comments — from 1990 to the present.
The advisory opinion processPending advisory opinion requests
Once the Office of the General Counsel has determined that an advisory opinion request meets all of the requirements to move forward for consideration by the Commission, the request is made public and is available for public comment for ten days.
Learn how to commentAO 2020-02 Bertrand
Expenditures and disbursements by U.S. citizen residing in Canada.
Recent advisory opinions issued
The Commission issues an advisory opinion when four or more Commissioners vote to approve it. These votes almost always occur during an open meeting.
Explore all advisory opinionsAO 2020-04 Joan Farr for U.S. Senate
The Commission was without a quorum of four Commissioners, so no AO was issued.
AO 2020-03 McCutcheon for Freedom
The Commission was without a quorum of four Commissioners, so no AO was issued.
AO 2020-01 Nabilah for Georgia
Dismissed as moot.
AO 2019-18 IDF International Technologies, Inc.
Advertising by online political forum.
AO 2019-16 Shemanski
Nonauthorized committee use of abbreviation of candidate's name.
AO 2019-15 NORPAC
NORPAC, a political action committee, asks whether it may deduct a percentage fee from earmarked contributions that it forwards in order to reimburse its own solicitation and administrative costs.