This file contains archived live captions of the open meeting of the Federal Election Commission held on November 02, 2023. This file is not a transcript of the meeting, and it has not been reviewed for accuracy or approved by the Federal Election Commission. ______________ Madam chair we are light and recording and the gavel one ready. Good morning, the open meeting for this Thursday November 2nd, 2023 will come to order. Mr. Chairman -- Mr. Vice Chairman we have a special motion. I move in order that the may consider submission of agenda document number 23-23-B. All in favor? Aye motion passes unanimously. Before we get started on our agenda I am asking Commissioner Trainor for a point of personal privilege. This morning I would like to congratulate my hometown Texas Rangers on having won the World Series yesterday, first time in history and also the first team to not lose a road given the series. Congratulations to the Texas Rangers. congratulations to you and your team. The first item is the proposed directive regarding investigations conducted by the office of General Counsel. Commissioner Dickerson, I will pass the microphone to you. Let me first start by congratulating Commissioner Trainor on Mets fans everywhere, don't get used to it. I have a memorandum that speaks for itself but I want to note a few general points. First, the statute that we administered, the Federal election campaign act. Entrust the conduct of investigations to the commission. It explicitly makes that 84 vote matter requiring commission supervision. This directive began as a bipartisan effort with Commissioner Broussard and I don't want to speak for her but I think we both recognized that where errors or omissions occur, the condition whether any investigations or otherwise, responsibility lies with the commissioners and met with the office General Counsel or stuff. This is intended to create a mechanism to discharge the commissions oversight responsibilities and ensure Commissioner accountability for the conduct of our investigation. And with that table setting, Madam chair? Commissioner Broussard? thank you, Madam chair. Excuse me I have a cold. Sorry if it sounds really bad at times. I too want to note that this was a bipartisan effort and as usual, I have enjoyed working with Commissioner Dickerson on this but I presented an alternative draft that I would like to put a few words out. For the consideration today I submit agenda document B which is an alternative proposed directive regarding the office General Counsel investigations. I agree with the words of my colleague that we as the commission are responsible for the investigations that we have done and so where there may be lax or failures we also accept that responsibility. This is designed to address the specific proposals that had the potential at times the original draft would have had some delays and further burdens with OGC's work but the effort is to preserve the independence of the office of General Counsel needs to follow an investigation leads that strengthen the case for probable cause against respondents or absolve those respondents of the allegations. It acknowledges the need for change, on the average length of investigations have stretched well beyond a year dating back to fiscal year 2017 including a high of 826 days and fiscal year 2022 and most recently 437 days in fiscal year 2023. I want to thank my colleagues for working with me on this but I speak and I often times say this but it is true, I speak with the unique respect of because of the six individuals that serve as commissioners I was the won that is present today or present in zoom world as a staff attorney in the office of General Counsel and have experience with these investigations. While this alone does that make me more qualified to speak on investigation process than any of my other colleagues, it is the unique experience that I have and I can provide some context. Investigations can move at a deliberate pace but they can also be frustrating by the inherently bureaucratic nature of FECA draft B what delay the adoption until after respondents had an opportunity to reply to the commissions findings and I believe this eliminates some of the need for the commission for OGC to have to return to the commission for the approval of endless rounds of investigative plan. Additionally, and I find this important, footnote number 5, paragraph five, excuse me, includes a footnote identification of new sources of publicly available information is not expansion of the scope of the investigation requiring an investigative plan on additional tell you about because this reflects a long-held practice by OGC to consult and consider common sources of publicly available information including records from other government agency and new sources. The footnote requires that such news sources of information be included in regular updates. Finally, draft B census the proposed directive on June the 30th at 2025 incident of December 31st at 2025. I believe that earlier date provides enough time for the commission for the office of General Counsel and other stakeholders to assess the effectiveness of the procedures with time for a permanent adoption or implement any necessary changes by the year end. Enclosing I spent the majority of my career with this agency and I care deeply about the statutory responsibility and equally about the morale and job satisfaction of each FEC employee but I do believe this draft improves upon the original proposal by balancing the OGC's independence with the commission's responsibility to oversee investigations. I respectfully urge my colleagues to support at the appropriate type. Thank you. thank you. I want to highlight one part of the investigation that I think is important. That should speed up our investigations. I hope to send a message to their community that the office of General Counsel has the full backing of the commission and whatever investigation it is conducting. There is no benefit to game and ship and attempting to play OGC against the commission and undue delays are not tolerated because the commission has already authorized OGC to conduct the investigation and approved its tactics and plans. And the cases in which the commission authorizes a subpoena that means we are willing to go to federal court to enforce the subpoena if need be. While I advocate to allow for voluntary compliance period, the message will be clear that OGC is acting in the full weight and measure and authority of the commission. If you want to cooperate voluntarily that is wonderful but voluntary compliance is not an opportunity to delay the investigation. Currently, we see respondents that are often just delaying and delaying complying with request from our counsel. And this should bring an end to that. As for the two week voluntary compliance period, I am acutely aware of the impacts of commission actions. Including investigations of enforcement matters and how they have an effect on individuals, candidates, committees and vendors that are either the target or subject of that information or have relevant information to the investigations. For those vendors or entities that routinely work in the political realm but are not the target, receiving a subpoena from the commission as a reputational risk even if they have done nothing wrong. Provided the opportunity for volunteer compliance with the commission's discovery request before submit a subpoena will allow those, and at the target or subject of the investigation the opportunity to avoid a formal subpoena if they wish. On the flipside, for the target and subject of commission investigations, this change will convey that any voluntary compliance is a privilege and not a right. Should they delay in complying with OGC discovery requests they will know that a subpoena has been authorized and is ready to serve. This change will preserve the upside of voluntary compliance where it's engaged in good faith but reduces the downside risk that a target or subject uses voluntary discovery as a message delay and obstruct investigation. I am looking forward to these investigations going faster and getting to us in an expedited basis. Any further comments? Yes? Thank you, Madam chair and my sincere thanks to Commissioner Dickerson, Broussard and the chair for all the work that went into putting this policy together that I think is going to get adopted today and I think it's commendable. I agree with the spirit of it and I think much of its provisions I'm not going to be able to support draft B because of one issue. When I vote no it's not misinterpreted. I agree with pretty much everything in it but I think commissioners have a long-standing disagreement about the issue of investigations and the use of publicly available information and news sources by the office of General Counsel as part of its conduct an assessment of enforcement matters. In my view, those parts of investigation should be subject to the same kind of commission approval as other forms of compulsory process. For important reasons, which we have seen in many instances that the exploration, investigation of publicly available information has led to long amounts of effort and time wasted that were spent on these things, often fruitlessly and I think that demands a greater degree of commission oversight and frankly I think there are different tolerances among commissioners about what constitutes permissible or acceptable investigations of publicly available information. More importantly, I should say that while this is a policy that is focused on authorized investigations by the commission after it is found reason to believe, my greeter concern is that by a blessing it in this stage in this enforcement process we are further entrenching it at a stage in which it is much more problematic which is before finding any reason to believe in drafting the F GCR one we have instances in which attorneys are reading entire books going through entire libraries and resources, spending thousands, literally thousands of hours on outside resources to write an FGCR that postdates of complaint. That is the problem with our investigations and that is something that I don't -- I want to rein in and not further entrenched. For that reason I am not able to support the policy that includes that footnote but I can very much agree with the rest of it and I agree that ultimately the commission it needs to own these investigations and exercise a certain degree, greater degree of control and oversight of the. Again, I wouldn't -- my sincere thanks to everybody who worked on it. That's all. Any further discussion? thank you, Madam chair. Like all of us we all bring our own unique set of experiences to the table. My views are informed by years of watching commissioners trying to influence investigations. I don't want anything that I say to be construed as a personal comments about anybody sitting at the table because as I said, my views are informed by years of seeing how Commissioner involves an commission -- investigations turned up. Unless the public be confused by some of the statements that have been made earlier about -- and think that we have a bunch of government employees running amok and running rampant through investigations, to provide some context, there are currently 200 cases in our enforcement division and exactly 7 ongoing investigations. Seven active investigations. Not a lot of investigatory activity actually going on. And I can recall any number of cases where I have implored my colleagues. We could resolve this matter with very targeted investigation, with three questions. One question even. And getting -- been unsuccessful in persuading the required three other commissioners to agree to ask a very limited number of questions. Both of these policies reflect a trend that has been going on for many years. It's not unique to recent times. Of commissioners trying to be -- to frankly micromanage the few investigations that we do. I appreciate all the efforts that went into this. I know people spent a lot of time on this and I absolutely agree that the commissioners are responsible for the conduct of the investigations and what goes on in the agency. I believe that means we should ensure that our staff have the appropriate resources and training and personnel to conduct the business in an efficient and professional manner. I have a lot of confidence in our staff. I think we have a lot of great attorneys who work in this building and I think it is -- I'm not aware of any other investigatory incidents in law enforcement agencies. We are the political appointees at the very top of the agency literally go over every single question that is asked and that is what would -- that is what would happen under either of these policies. Let me say, I agree that draft B is a big improvement over earlier drafts and there are a number of provisions in there that I agree with and that I could support but I think the crux of both of these policies is to ensure commissioners will be micromanaging every single investigation, that the staff will require commissioners permission to ask every single question and I think particularly given the political sensitivity of some of the investigations that we do them all of the investigations that we do, having political appointees making all of those decisions is not ideal and certainly not typical of how other law enforcement agencies work. So, although as I said, I appreciate the efforts that went into it and I appreciate -- and as I said, there are a number of provisions particularly in draft B that I agree with , I am not going to be able to support either of these drafts. And for the -- any further discussion? Motions or discussion? Motion, all right. Mission or Dickerson. I move the adoption adoption draft B . Smoke any discussion in the matter? Just one very brief point, I share the Vice Chairman's concerns on review of publicly available information and I will be watching closely on how it interprets this but I do think it bears note that this is intended as a solely post-RTB investigatory policy that should not be interpreted to impact activity that occurs prior to a finding. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye . All oppose? No. Motion passes 4-2 with Commissioner Dickerson, Trainor, Broussard and myself in favor. Pfister and Commissioner oppose. Thank you. I would like to move forward on this one. All right, next step, we have an advisory opinion -- what number is this? Advisory opinion 2023-06. Counsel, would you like to come up? So, we are -- Mr. advisory opinion was requested by Texas majority pack and we have Jonathan Berkon and Courtney Weisman and sermon mood is here on behalf of that request -- requester. The floor is yours. Thank you, Madam chair. Good morning, commissioners. Before you are agenda document 23-23 letter a and 123-23 B which are responsive to advisory opinion request from Texas majority pack. The requester asks if cost is loaded with its proposed constitute in-kind contributions to any federal candidate or political party committee to depicted in the reference canvassing materials. Draft letter a proposed of the canvas would not include correlated communications however the canvassing expenses would include coordinated expenditures, the cost of which would be in-kind contributions to the federal candidates or political party committees depicted or referenced in the canvassing materials. Document B includes the paid canvas would include coordinated communications accordingly the cost of the communications would be in-kind contributions to any federal candidate or political party committee depicted in the communication. The commission received one comment on the request and four comments on the drafts. Thank you. We are available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. We have quite a few comments as you said that have come in through the last two days. Right, yes. Maybe 24 hours. So, my colleagues, any questions? Yes. A preliminary question and then I will stick aside for my colleagues. I read your original request as principally about whether this activity would be coordinated communication. There was some back-and-forth and I appreciated your citations. I enjoyed that. But some back-and-forth on whether 109.20 be coordinated expenditure is of limited. And there has been quite a number of comments which I generally found persuasive about that question, but my questions, we can only answer the questions that you ask us so I want to ask you directly, are you asking us to apply on 109.20 B or is your request to coordinate [ Indiscernible - muffled ] I think our question -- I guess I will answer in two parts per it's whether or not that paid canvas is a contribution. I do think that question, to the extent the commission believes that 109.20 B applies as part of your jurisdiction to answer. I think it is our view that 109.20 B is not applied but I don't think it is outside your excision to answer that question. Follow-up, would you consider an answer that does not apply on 109 .20 B to be a complete answer to your question? Is that no square with your AO are? I think this process has been a bit unusual insofar as we ask a question, we got back a very helpful follow-up question and we responded. Part of the reason why we suggested an extension might be appropriate here come is perhaps to reframe pieces of the question as far as expenses are concerned because in reading draft letter a to the extent that it is the framework that forms the basis of the future, the ultimate opinion, we are having difficulty discerning which expenses are part of the paid canvas that would be considered noncommunication expenditures versus communication expenditures. To the extent that it would be useful at some point for us to perhaps reframe as part of an extension, I think we are happy to do that and use this meeting as an opportunity to narrow the questions before the commission and provide any additional factual information. Thank you, Madam chair. To follow up on what you just said, you said -- let me back up. Your comments were helpful. I wish they had been the basis of the original request that I would have more time to consider them. But am I right when I read at the bottom of page two your statement, draft A framework is consistent with the [ Indiscernible - muffled ] two pillars to ask whether expenses are both for canvassing themselves or sufficiently direct inputs to a component of the canvassing communications to be considered part of them. You agree that is the standard? I think to Commissioner not to your earlier question, part of the reason it was not the basis for our general opinion is that we did not anticipate that would be the standard to apply. Coming into it. I think this is the -- in looking back at the original follow-up question that came in regarding 109.20 B, it's not just the requesters here but as you saw in the comments from the regulated community we have historically viewed this issue as a question of whether 109 .21 or 1.20 apply strict the first question is is a paid canvas a public communication or not? And then once you get past that point, I think our position is that 109.21 is the governing regulation. I think draft A introduced -- and I have a sense of obviously were it is coming from, there is no citation that appears to be coming from the courts decisions in the record case, I think it is absolutely fair that is part of the standard and heart of the question that is asked. I think in terms of applying it we don't think it applies to these particular costs but I think it is an entirely reasonable question to ask as part of the analysis because there could be expenditures that in fact fail that test and therefore would not be considered part of the community -- the communication process. It is applied in the original draft A. What's up soon , negation cost including distribution cost us to make it virtually impossible to actually have a communication within 109.21. We don't object to that question. Let me back up to a higher level and make sure I am understanding your theory, which I think is also set up in draft A, your theory between 109 point 20 10 -- it covers Courtney to medications which is limited to communications. And then we have 109.20 B which is noncommunicative expenditures, correlated noncommunicative expenditures. And then there is a gap between those things which we will call nonpublic medications. These are things like you are proposing like canvas, InterNIC medications, the most obvious one that would not be public communications, we will get other request whether a particular, rallies and other things are nonpublic medications. For those things, the cost for those are not covered by 109.21 or 109.20 B, they can be coordinated and the cost for them are not in-kind contributions insofar as the expenses for them for the can medications themselves sufficiently direct of those indications. That is your theory of how those provisions interplay with each other? And I heard you and I want to clarify the right that it is very similar language from the record opinion but that you are fine with the standard for what is covered in that gap or exempted -- what costs are not in-kind contributions? Correct. Do disagree with the comment that the standard is bizarre and illogical? I think as applied, I agree with the outcome of what they are saying that as applied it would result in that but you saw my comments and I did not use those words. So then, this isn't meant as an accusation but you said you were having trouble figuring out how that standard of expenses for the communications or indirect inputs would apply. Isn't that partly your fault because you didn't give us a list of the expenses covered by this? I think that is entirely fair and to my earlier point I think when you understand the framework that will be news to answer a question it helps you frame and request to get the answers on the things you are asking me about. -- Because the standard had not been setting aside the record had not been articulated at least by this commission before hand, the itemization piece of it, the fact that we would be going item by item was not how I anticipated the commission would answer the question, frankly until we sought draft A. Absolutely, this is an interplay between the requester and the commission. And when you hit upon a novel issue like that, I think that is why we thought a pause might make some sense, to try now that we have a sense of where you are coming from, if there is additional information. But ultimately you are right. Just to clarify, we haven't asked for an extension but are you is you are telling us? Okay all right. I have a few more questions about the expenses that were described in your request, not everything. And how it interplay is with the standard. The request says the can bursars will be instructed to go to homes of preselected voters. How is that determined? Who the preselected voters are? That was question that came up in one of the earlier back and forth. That will be a determination made by our client, that they will determine who the preselected voters are. They will do the targeting themselves. Were they going to come up with their own list based on existing --? Exactly. They have access to voter file data and do their data analysis and will come up with that. That is all done in-house? Their profiles and everything? Okay. They also say can bursars will record the voters answers to certain questions. There is a couple questions that arise from that. One, what are they planning to do with the answers? This goes your point. In your comments you took about one of the -- you are describing reasoning that one of the things they were looking at was whether the expenses could be used for building something that has a noncommunication purpose. A separate purpose. It would seem that administering a questionnaire building voter profiles for future purposes might hit within that as an it canvas but also building voter profiles where we are collecting data. What is your response? I would analytically break it into two pieces. I don't think that the asking of questions and recording of answers in and of itself falls under 109.20 B. That is part of the communication of the conversation and essentially recording the information from the conversation in my view as part of the communication as it directly relates and records of. To the extent that our client were to -- from that information you can create all sorts of voter profiles and data. You might record that information in a voter file and take information to the extent that our client would turn that information over to a candidate, that's where I think 109.20 B would come in. That's why I think analytically that's where the interplay kind of pits its force there. Once that information would be turned over to the candidate, to me that would be an in-kind. If that were to happen, there would have to be some kind of payment to avoid an in-kind contribution. The mere act of recording -- an example where they didn't turn it open -- overcommitted with the committee, I don't see where the benefit then goes to the candidate such that it would be an in-kind contribution. The last one is, there is a lot of discussion of the issue of staff time and production versus distribution. I want to differentiate between that canvassers themselves, the people going door-to-door and the vendor and the managers, recruiter and people in the back office. The thing that strikes me that is going to be a problem to the extent that we are operating in a correct record framework, staff time was one of the specific things that the report said was not as eventually direct in the input communications. How is that going to get squared if a lot of what is being sent here to these vendors is hiring people who do that trainings to recruit people, read the questions, read the literature, design it and how is that going to get square? I think part of in reading draft A I noticed the compensation of the canvassers was not one of the things that was on the not for medication expenditure. It was not especially to be a communication expenditure. If I can assume for a second that the compensation of canvassers would be communication expenditure in draft A we are left with something that goes right above it, which is the hiring of those canvassers, the training of those canvassers and the managing. I think the distinction between the back time and correct the record is that, the time there is to ensure that the communications, the specific communications themselves get distributed to the voters in a effective and efficient way. You can't obviously have -- the canvassers in this case are the delivery mechanism and that really wasn't the case --. You could have a staffer and more of the correct record situation, again I'm not weighing in on the merits of the case, but there was no -- the stuffer could do a lot of different types of work that could be repurposed for a nonexempt purpose. Whereas here, ultimately, the only role a canvasser plays is to deliver that communication, the first of which is the piece of literature, the second is the script itself. There is no other utility for their time, their work and payment for it. The time that is spent to then hire them falls into the same category because there is no -- the hiring is directly connected to actually having canvassers to then pay. In the time and money spent to hire those folks, there is no ability to repurpose that. It's not like you get a hiring agency that you can then use the higher the rest of your stuff. You pay them for the specific purpose and then they go away. It is directly tied to distribution of it. I viewed the same way as the training. As we indicated in the request you put -- you could send untrained canvassers, probably not a good idea. Not something political organizations wish to do. The training of those canvassers is done specifically so that they do a better job of delivering that specific medication. Its title communication and there is no utility at least to the committee of that training other than delivery of those communications. It may be that the canvassers get something out of it, it may they are better canvassers for some other organization before the committee itself it's not like they still have a computer left over for select 50% of staff members time or some other durable good. All they have is the fact that those canvassers, that they deliver those mechanisms are going forward. That's what I think it fundamentally is a distinction from corrected the record and why production versus distribution in practice ends up being a useful way the commission can handle the issues going forward. I have one last question I understand from your request that because Texas law doesn't allow you to use labor and treasury function you are using funds that don't comply with the federal -- other source limits. Are there any limits from our perspective, -- let's say you receive I guess after this proposal, are there limits on any source of funds from a federal perspective that could be used to be for this canvas? Could a corporation itself use its own treasury funds to do a similar paid canvas and coronation with a federal candidate? I do not think it happens to be in Texas that you can't use corporate funds for that purpose but I think if it were like a Virginia entity or you could, I think the answer would be the same. Corporate -- and the same would be for union treasury funds and okay -- that's all. Number questions. Thank you, Madam chair. Any other questions or discussion? Thank you, Madam chair. Hello, counsel, how are you? Always nice to see you. I would like to give you an opportunity to explain something --. I think there is a lot of interesting and knotty issues wrapped up in your request. Is interesting to me that you are arguing for a definition of communication that includes production costs. I'm sure you are aware there are other contests this is contexts where people have argued vociferously the projection costs shouldn't count, particularly in the Internet context for example towards the cost of the communication. Is interesting. One question that is, that I have been mulling over is whether we can have different abuse views with different medications. The production costs would be considered part of the communication, let me stop there and see if you want to comment on that one. So, I guess I disagree a bit with the premise I think in the context of Internet committee caution -- production cost is expended by a PAC, they are recorded by that PAC and we would consider those to be a part of the communication cost . It is just that under 109.21 and Internet rulemaking, and that communication is not placed for a fee on the Internet, it is not a coordinated communication. It doesn't mean the production cost are not part of the communication. It means it is not placed for a fee and therefore falls outside that. Okay. Interesting. In fact I think otherwise it wouldn't --. If it didn't -- if those costs didn't count as part of communication, I think we would be in the situation where we are having pieces of draft A or you would actually count those cost as potentially under 109.20 B. It actually has to be part of the medication for it to be within the 109.21. It has to be --. It seems like that might be -- you are trying to get a particular result. Has to be part of the common occasion otherwise you are going to get nabbed by the next provision in regulations. I think that's the result piece. But if we look again at how, for example, if [ Indiscernible - muffled ] , you would expect in reports filed with the commission they include both production and distribution costs. And refers them as direct costs. One report on expenditures whether it is a PAC , a non-committee, the questions that Sarah and I asked and I think any lawyers always ask the client, do you have the production costs covered? The of the distribution costs covered? Did we forget any costs as part of the? We are always asking about production cost, distribution cost and we consider those to be part of the communication cost when there is an obligation to report that as an election medication or independent expenditure. I think the principals were articulating were very consistent with how those forms are constructed and how the rules are laid out. Okay, how many people are you hoping to reach with this canvassing effort? I don't know. I can ask. That tends to get set as we get closer. How many pieces of identical literature are being printed quick Seesmic I think we can see would be more than 500. You can see where I'm going with this. We can see it will be more than 500. By the way I haven't decided where I am on this question. But I do like, I like it when words mean what people think they mean and I suppose the commission could come up with an interpretation that said for the purposes of this regulation, blue is yellow, but I'm not sure that passes the arbitrary test because people have a sense people -- when Congress uses words, they are operating on the basis that people have some shared sense of what those words mean. You are not contesting that this canvassing effort involves common occasion plainly, right quick we are arguing the opposite. Yes, you think it is all communication but you are arguing that it is not a public communication despite the fact that you are hoping to reach more than 500 people, perhaps thousands of people, perhaps more than that. And in other parts of the statute and regulations we define public as more than 500 substantially similar communications, so why are these more than 500 substantially similar communications -- and we know they will be substantially similar because you said people are going to be trained to deliver the message in exactly the way the client wants them and you have certain printed materials and the printed materials will be the same. So, why is this communication not a public communication? That's a great question. This gets down to what we talked about initially as a threshold question, is this a public communication are not? The commission has always looked at the regulation here and in defining what a public communication is, there are certain enumerated communications and I think we all agree. Canvassing is not one of the integrated. We have a catchall at the end which is general public political advertisement. The question is whether this is general public or political advertisement. Where the commission has come out in past opinions, I think in most recently in 2022 text message AO involving Senator Hassan -- I'm going to start with the dissenting opinion, which I know you prefer. And, the dissenters and that opinion said these types of communication share two key characteristics. They are all communications for which a payment is required and hours meets that. Second, all general political advertising medications rely on an intermediary. This does not rely on an intermediary to disseminate the message. You are not hiring a vendor to send these canvassers out quick in our view, a vendor is our agents and our agent does not intermediate. We go through in detail in our advisory request what intermediary is and it is someone who is in between. Someone who does not work for the voter. Is someone who does not work for the client. It is someone in between. And that is the definition trigger point earlier. I very much agree with you that words about her and we need to use words in the context in which they are used consistently. If you look at the -- the only part we found were intermediary is defined is in the conduit provision and there is an explicit definition for intermediary for a committees agent that is used for that purpose and the reason is that the basic dictionary definition is that, intermediary is a go-between or a mediator. If the general public political advertising requires her to be intermediary, this doesn't meet the test. Doesn't mean you can't rewrite your regulation. Congress can't rewrite the statute but under the words of the regulation, it doesn't need -- meet --. That is a good argument. When I read that I was not sure I agree with your dish mission and definition but I'm going to study the subject further. Thank you. Any further discussion. A couple. I think I want to zoom out again. This is interesting and any informed observer is aware [ Indiscernible - muffled ] as do all of us. It is a rich discussion going back some years. I want to turn to the second question where people are less committed. We talked a lot about the has the D.C. circuit adopted that argument? So -- that is my read of the record. Obviously, I think it is public record. Sarah and I personally have not been. My read of the record the only piece that went up to D.C. circuit was the standing issue, but that to the extent that the standard has been articulated by the district for opinion in two different versions [ Indiscernible - muffled ] . You are not here on behalf of correct record. I may be speaking for myself but while I have the greatest respect for Judge who is a quite a bit smarter than me [ Indiscernible - muffled ] they don't pass through regulation. Let me ask this question because I have been struggling a bit. In response to the vice chairman's questions, you seem to suggest to me that -- let me back up. I hope that no one or anyone else's under the impression that either of these drafts -- they should not be taking the mechanisms as commissioners are. My question is, you suggested a rule that was being articulated. My question is just a basic question. Are you familiar with rule of law provision, the act? So, let me find it. Section 301 eight advisory opinion subsection B. Any rule of law not stated in this act or related chapters may be initially proposed by the commission as a rule or regulation to procedures established under this section. Opinion of advisory nature issued by the commission or any of its employees accepting accordance of this section. I'm going to ask are you seeing the same question? I'm not sure there is -- I'm sure there is a but it is new to me, how this provision does interpret it. If you have any concerns that the role that is being articulated in these drafts is sufficiently novel as to raise concerns under the statute quick I think as you describe it, yes. I think my conversation with the vice chair earlier so much so that seeing it in draft A -- at some level that is a pretty good indicator of novelty of it and I think given what you read I would be interested in what -- says. Is not a provision that I focused on but it would seem to indicate. five. Madam chair, it's a question that we have considered and we would like to take a look at that and consider it and get back to you. I appreciate that. Simply getting some time anyway, I would be curious about that because I have had concerns in the back and forth that we are getting further [ Indiscernible - muffled ] there has been some suggestion that the report here is to get a fuller description proposed expenditures -- not line by line, take a more granular work at which expenditures the commission is going to consider what sort of input cost and what is considered not. Have we done that? It makes me nervous for a lot of reasons. Do we have any experience of going line by line in terms of expenditures and getting that regular opinion? I will say in my research we didn't come across any commission president for drawing this line as to what a completion or expenditure or were something falls in that spectrum. We did review any material that suggested we had previously gone through line by line like that. Madam chair? A request to counsel and other requesters, I think we have done a little bit [ Indiscernible - muffled ] I'm not sure anybody is comfortable with the provision of what is being proposed. I would find it useful to have learned commentary on our way forward that is not going to overburden advisory opinion process. I will say, and this has been noted by a number of commissioners in recent years, the process is a very valuable tool and I am nervous about it turning into essentially a pre-enforcement or pre-investigatory approach where we are unable to provide useful answers and be so overburdened with staff [ Indiscernible - muffled ] Any further discussion? We have already been granted an extension. We will leave it to -- I think we can leave it to OGC and requester for however many days and what time we need, but I think we have had some good discussion here. I'm grateful that we received so many comments. It certainly helped. We can certainly take more in as we figure this out on the way forward. Thank you, all. All right. Well, Commissioner Broussard has a point of personal privilege or Mr. Knop? Did I miss something? Mr. Broussard? I did request a point of personal privilege because this week I want to take his passing of our long-time colleague Ms. Sheppard. She spent 32 years with the commission. I worked with her for more than a decade. She was in the audit division but more than 32 years of the agency put nearly 40 years with the federal government. That is a longtime service that I think not just that the FEC but the country as well are grateful for. While she made significant contributions with the work at the agency, I think her larger legacy is that she was a support to our colleagues. She lent us shoulder for people to lean on and an ear for listening. Personally I remember she was good friends with my paralegal Deborah Rice and I would walk in on the two of them just talking away and Pat would give me a very stern look that said come back later, we are doing important work at the agency right now. But she always said everything with a good heart. Uniquely enough, she shares a birthday with one of the -- in the agency and shares a wedding anniversary with Anita. I was about to say the wrong name. One of the things that I learned just recently that Pat was looking forward to celebrating her 70th birthday and was in the process of planning that when she became ill. While she will not be able to celebrate the birthday, I hope those that love and know her well will take that opportunity on that date to remember her and reflect on what a wonderful person she was. I do want to say on behalf of the commission, I offer their sincerest condolences to Pat's family. I believe her daughter Rachel is in the audience so I am sorry I am not there to extend my condolences to her personally, but condolences to her family and both those that hear -- at home and here at the FEC. Thank you for that opportunity, Madam chair. [ Indiscernible - muffled ] management and administered of matters? Madam chair there are no such matters. Thank you all, this meeting is adjourned. Standby. [ Event concluded ]