This file contains archived live captions of the open meeting of the Federal Election Commission held on January 25, 2018. This file is not a transcript of the meeting, and it has not been reviewed for accuracy or approved by the Federal Election Commission.
    
     
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Good morning.  The open meeting of the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, JanuaryÊ25th, is in session.  Good morning, everybody.  Welcome.
    We have two matters on the agenda today.  The first one is proposed interim enforcement policy on volunteer mail exception.  And for that, I believe we have a presentation fromÊ do we have a motion, Madam Vice Chair?
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: We do, thank you, Madam Chair.  I move that we waive the rules on the timely submission of agenda documents so we may consider agenda document 1803A.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: All those in favor, aye.  
    [ÊChorus of ayesÊ]
    So back to volunteer mail exemption.  I believe we have a presentation from Mr.ÊLorenzo Holloway from the Office of General Counsel.  I appreciate all of your help on this issue over the years.  Thank you.
    >> I just wanted to speak very briefly about how this issue has played out and also general counsel and our division, in working with the audit division.  It has had a significant impact because there has really been the policy with respect to this has been unclear.  So a lack of charity with respect to that, but how it actually plays out, it plays out really on two levels.  One level is the issue of, well, how much is enough with respect to volunteer activity?  Both qualitative and quantitative.  Another level it plays out is if assuming that volunteers were actually involved or they participated.  The other level is, well, how do you prove it?  And that's how it actually plays out with respect to our audit reports, as they go through the audit process.
    But more specifically, how it plays out when we get down to actually analyzing our reports and producing our reports.  Let's say an NMR report comes to the Office of General Counsel and it deals with the volunteer materials exemption and the auditors are looking at, well, theÊ the volunteers participated in mailings and the committee has photographs, color photographs, in fact, on the iPhone, for example.  And we take that and the auditors may say, well, we think that this does or does not satisfy volunteer mailing exemption.  The problem is we don't have a clear standard with respect to the volunteer material exemption.  We are not sure whether they meet the volunteer material exemption and we are not sure whether those color photographs should be sufficient in terms of proof of whether or not they actually meet it.
    And as a result, what we usually tell the audit division to do is note the lack of clarity in the audit report, but also in the memorandum to the commission, or a draft find audit report we ask that you raise this issue for the Commission.  And that's the way it actually plays out between the audit division and the Office of General Counsel and it has with respect to the current status.
    In this, I think there have been 13 audits where this has happened. 
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Thank you very much.  And just to clarify, you say you note on the cover memo that this is an issue, meaning you want to let the commissioners know that there's a lack of clarity.  It's unclear, you know OGC is understandably having a hard time knowing exactly how to apply this issue because the commissioners haven't given you the guidance that would be helpful to you inÊ in doing this issueÊ in analyzing this issue?
    >> That's correct.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Okay.  And that you also generally put the issue as a finding, meaning that the audited committee violated something; is that correct?
    >> Yes, the auditors will leave it as a finding and then we ask the auditors to raise it in a cover memorandum to you, to the Commission.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Okay.  One of the reasons I wanted to talk about this and I was very hopeful that we could get a policy that would garner four votes today.  As you know and as people who have studied the audits can see, oftentimes at least three commissioners will vote to move that finding to what we call other issues, which means that finding doesn't have four votes to support it, because in partÊ in part because of the lack of clarity on the policy.
    And so at the end of the day, there's no finding anyway.  And so I was hopingÊ I'm still hoping that we might be able to do something to prevent the auditors and your staff and OGC from spending a lot of time and energy looking at this issue, and having the audited committee, the public spend a lot of time with the auditors trying to prove up all of this stuff at the end for it just to turn into nothing.  And that's one of the reasons I appreciate your explaining this kind of how it manifests itself in an everyday situation both for the staff at the Commission and for the public.  Thank you for explaining that.  Obviously, if we had a policy, it would make it a lot easier for everybody to know what to do.
    I'm glad we scheduled this meeting close to groundhog day.  We are sort of celebrating early today, because this is an issue that's been coming up for literally the entire time that I have been here, and in my mind, the summary of it is we have a number of MURs on the record that if anybody sits down and tries to cobble a rule together, it's really impossible and we have some public comments to support.
    That we also have Mr.ÊHolloway who just said there's lack of clarity and it's unclear.  It's one of those areas where even our staff, you knowÊ there's a lot of unclear areas in this law but they are able to come up with something that we can apply the law to.  In this area, it's so unclear that we cannot do it.  I think it's an anomaly in that sense and I'm hoping that we can up with a policy that provides guidance, as I said both to our staff and to the public, and also to encourage volunteer participation.
    Even if we are not able to garner four votes today, for a policy, which I don't believe we'll be able to, I think it's of some value after this many years to let the public know where the commissioners stand on this issue, andÊ and the three of us, Commissioner Petersen and Commissioner Goodman and I have put out a proposed interim policy.  It's essentially the same one we put out back in 2010.  There are some minor edits to it, but it's essentially the same thing and we also put it up again last summer.  Many times we talked about this and so I think actually having a vote on it and letting the public know where we stand might beÊ might be useful at this point.  Obviously, generally, I like to calendar things where we can get four votes but letting people know where we are, I think would be helpful toÊ to a lot of people at this point.  It doesn't seem as if we will be able to come up with something that provides people the guidance that we were hoping for.
    Commissioner Petersen.
    >> MATTHEW PETERSEN: Thank you, Madam Chair.  First of all, I would just like to commend you for your effort to try to bring greater clarity to the question of when state and local parties and the mail programs they sponsor may avail themselves of material, the volunteer materials exemption as found in the Federal Elections Campaign Act.  I just had one quick followup question with Mr.ÊHolloway.  You mentioned that there were 13 audits thatÊ
    >> Yes, we sent in 13 audits.
    Some are ongoing and some are closed.
    >> MATTHEW PETERSEN: Okay.  And what's the time period?  How far back?  What sort of time frame are you sort of referring to, those audits?
    >> Well, I know it goes back to at least the 2010 election cycle.  It may go backÊ I didn't do the actual research myself.  The report noted there were at least 13.  I know it goes back to 2010.
    >> MATTHEW PETERSEN: Okay.  This is something that the Chair pointed out, we grappled with several times.  We had several MURs that dealt with this issue.  Whenever we have a matter under review for those who are listening over the Internet or watching this proceeding that those are the enforcement matters that the Commission considers.
    And as the Commission has dealt with the volunteer materials exemptions in the case of volunteer mail programs by state and local parties, it often has come down to how manyÊ how many verbs are being cited by the parties.  Was there enough unloading, loading, packaging, unpackaging, bagging, tagging, sorting, stamping, addressing, stuffing, you know, justÊ and determining what is a sufficient amount of volunteer activity in order to avail a party of theÊ of the volunteer materials exemption?
    And it's been a little bit of an uneven road in terms of figuring out what is sufficient, what isn't, but I think what is important isÊ is to recall why this exemption was put into the Federal Election Campaign Act in the first place, and toÊ and over the last couple of days, I have been revisiting some of the legislative history that surrounded the 1979 amendments which amended the act to include the volunteer materials exemption and it was kind of an interesting trip down memory lane.
    There was a Senate rules committee hearing in the summer of 1979.  Then Chairman Robert Tiernan, chairman.  FEC, recommended that the Commission have changes on this, and this is what he said.  He said unfortunately, the FECA has had or is perceived to have some grassroots activity.  Some activity is spontaneous, and local volunteer efforts should encouraged since it's the sign of healthy election campaign.  The FEC's legislative recommendation suggestions a number of improvements in this regard and such as, local and subordinate committees of a state party commission should be permitted to distribute materials normally associated with volunteer activities.  Without having such expenses count towards the expenditure limitations of that candidate.
    There was also a statement by a man named MorleyÊ it was either Winnegrad who was the democratic state chairmans and this is what he had to say.  Most political party committees are not sophisticated organizations but are loose associations of individuals who willingly give their spare time to engage in our nation's political life.  And as every candidate knows, it's from these individuals primarily volunteers that our political system draws its vitality to the extent reporting and record keeping requirements deter volunteer participation and federal elections, our little system suffers.  We would like to recommend the changes that the direct bill proposes to encourage volunteer activity and to the extent the law encourages volunteer activity we would consider it a success no matter what else happens.
    It is the politics of party, the politics of coalition, and accommodations which is our nation's best defense against the divisiveness against special interest politics.  These amends will encourage a better relationship between our political parties and candidates and between our parties and members.
    As the draft document that we're considering today acknowledges, the technology by which mail is produced and addressed, has changed significantly in the four decades or nearly four decades since the 1979 amendments.
    Nevertheless, the purpose underlined in the 1979 amendments remains as relevant as ever and I would say special in this era when outside spending has weakened the relative strength of position of our political parties, especially our state and local political parties in our electoral system.  We need more, not less grass roots participation at the state and local level and thus I think maintaining incentives for state and local parties to be able to involve volunteers remains as important as ever and I think is essential to maintaining the health and vitality of our state and local parties.
    So I think that this document does a good job atÊ is certainly an effort and may not be a successful effort today, but hopefully at least it continues the discussion that we are having here at the Commission to provide clarity as to when a party may avail themselves of this important exemption and mail programsÊ my colleague, Commissioner Goodman who has represented state and local parties to a great extent in his professional career, but the mail programs are some of the most important programs that a state and local party carries out in our federal electoral system.
    And so again, maintaining the incentives to involveÊ to involve volunteers in that effort, I think is essential and I think providing clear guidance is essential as well.  So that they knowÊ so that parties will know what level of involvement will allow them to avail themselves of that exemption, and as we said earlier, we'll also have the benefit of our own audit division, our own Office of General Counsel have a clearer understanding about what the proper standard is for applying the volunteer materials exemption and the matters that they have to consider here in the building.
    So, again, I commend you for the efforts that you have made to bring this to the forefront.  I hope that we can find and perhaps find some common ground, because I think this is important not only as an internal operational matter, but it certainly is important for the health and the strength of our democratic process in our country.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Thank you, Commissioner Petersen for the history and the purpose of the exemption.  Madam Vice Chair?
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Those are lovely sentiments, but I want to go back to the statute.  I mean, it's fine to look at the legislative history, but then let's look at the words they actually enacted at the same time that they were writing that.  What they wrote was:  The payment by a state or local committee of a political party of the costs of campaign materialsÊ such as pins, bumper stickers, hand bills, brochures, posters, party tabloids and yard signs used by such committee in connection with volunteer activities on behalf of nominees of such party would be exempt, providedÊ next paragraph, provided such payments are not for the cost of campaign materials or activities used in connection with any broadcasting, newspaper, magazine, billboard, direct mail, or similar type of general public communication or political advertising.  That's what they said.
    They said it wasn't supposed to cover direct mail.  And we have in front of us a policy that purports to interpret that language by adopting a mail exemption.  And whatever we think about how important it is to have volunteers working at the grass roots, I don't see how any of this is consistent with the words of the statute, and I could, you know, get into the weeds and, you know, if you want to go there, we can of particular issues that I have with the policy.  But the fundamental problem is that I think the whole concept is inconsistent with the words of the statute that were adoptedÊ I mean, the legislative history doesn't preempt the words of the statute.  That's what we have to interpret.  And there has to be a gray area there.  There has to be some ambiguity that we are interpreting.
    This goes beyond what I will call the Princess bride test.  These words don't mean what you think they mean.  The words actually mean the opposite of what the policy says.  And we might all agree that, you know, that'sÊ there are wonderful reasons why something like this ought to be adopted, but I still don't see how it's consistent with the words of the statute.  And I do think that it is a big problem for Commissioners who are empowered and authorized to read the statute to read a statute in a way that vitiates the words on the page.  I don't think that's within our authority, no matter how laudatory anybody's goals are in trying to do that.
    I mean, Congress could clearly change the words of the statute, but those are the words that are in front of us now.  I mean, and the kind of mail that is coming up over and over again is a mass mailing.  It is plainly the type of general public communication or political advertising that was exactly what the statute was talking about back then.
    Now, maybe if you had aÊ a mailing party, an oldfashioned mailing party where you have 20 volunteers sitting around in a room stuffing envelopes and putting the address labels on and then hand carrying it to the post office so entire activity is a volunteer activity, maybe you could make an argument for that, but what's happening is these are commercial operations.  Because it doesn't make sense to do mail any other way any more.  The entire thing is done by commercial operations and then they bring in a few volunteers toÊ and try to come up with something for those volunteers to do that really doesn't make any sense at all because the mail house would be perfectly happy to do all of that as part of what they are doing.
    And it is notÊ it can't be in any way considered this as being distributed by the volunteers.  It's being distributed by the postal service.  It's, I think the kinds of activities that lend themselves to theÊ the way the words are written on the page, is if you have volunteers going doortodoor, standing on street corners, manning booths at county fairs, they want to have something to hand out to people to remind people of who they are and what they were talking about and who the candidates were.  That makes perfect sense.  But this kind of impersonal mass mailing activity appears to me to be inconsistent with what Congress actually had in mind because of the words they put in the statute.
    I mean, you can say whatever you want about what they said.  I don't think that mass mailings are normally associated with volunteer activities.  That was one of the quotes that you read before, but just how do you justify it under the statute? 
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Commissioner Petersen?
    >> MATTHEW PETERSEN: As my colleague, Commissioner Weintraub knows, the Commission, basically since the beginning of this statute has drawn a distinction between direct mail, which is vendor produced mail, from start to finish and mail programs that have a significant volunteer component.  That's a distinction that has been drawn since the '80s.  I had a statement of reasons here.  This was fromÊ this was the oldest one I could find was from 2377.  It was a matter that arose in the late '80s.  The Republican Party of Texas.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: You read the same one the last time.
    >> MATTHEW PETERSEN: Yeah.  This was a precedent that was drawn but it's a precedent that's been followed for 30 years.  And you can find MURs before this, in the mid'80s.  I can't remember what the MUR number was but 1984, I think was one that we drew from.  This involved a mailing of almost 300,000 pieces of mail, where the Commission termed that there was sufficient volunteer actÊ determined that there was sufficient volunteer activity by the majority of the Commission to justify that this mailing could fall within the volunteer materials exemption.  And this is somethingÊ and frankly, I think this was a legitimate exercise of interpreting a statute and drawing a distinction between direct mail, which is vendor generator produced and mail that has a significant volunteer component in terms of getting it ready and adding, in this case, the elements to prepare for distribution, in packaging, label, sorting by ZIP code and bundling by carrier route and delivering to the post office.
    And like I said this was not an outlier.  This is decades long precedent.  And you talked about distribution of materials by volunteers.  That's not a term that's actually in the statute.
    That is a term that the Commission added in its regulations in terms of implementing the statute, but it's not a statutory term and as long line of Supreme Court precedent holds, that an administrative agency's interpretation of its own rules is entitled to deference, until it's plainly erroneous.  So that is a regulatory term that we have to interpret.
    And, again, the Commission has interpreted that for three to four decades and it's only within the last, you knowÊ around the time when I came to the Commission, there were a number of matters where weÊ if I recall, we still found at least on a few instances that there was sufficient volunteer activity to availÊ allow parties to avail themselves or there were some heckler dismissals along the way, to dismiss allegations that there wasn't sufficient volunteer activity.  This was something that we continued to apply in the time that we have been here.  And I think that I agree we have to follow the statute but the statute doesn't define what direct mail means.  And this agency had to take that term and draw distinctions, has drawn distinctions.  Those distinctions have long standing force in this agency, and frankly, hundreds of parties, state and local parties around this country have relies upon those precedents for decades and for us to now announce that we are going to no longer give force to those precedents, I think that that might have some definite legal problems, but at a minimum, I don't think that's the wayÊ I don't think that would be the best way in order for ab administrative agency to carry out and enforce its statutes to take such a kind of a Uturn from how it's interpreted the law for a long standing period of time.
    So I think that there's nothing illegitimate about the way that the Commission has interpreted this provision over those decades, and I think that if there's a sense that this policy that's being proposed doesn't require enough volunteer activity, and that maybe there should be greater evidence that is provided by parties in order to avail themselves whether or not there is a greater extent of activities that needs to be undertaken I think that that'sÊ I would hope that maybe we could move forward on that discussion.
    To say that mail as a class of communications is off the table, I thinkÊ I think flies in the face of how this agency has treated mail for three, almost four decades. 
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Well put, Commissioner Petersen.  Madam Vice Chair.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: I have a feeling whatever I say, you will not say well put, Madam Chair.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Maybe. 
    (Laughter).
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: I areÊ I think what 9 argument comes down to, though, is basically the Commission has been Commissioners for three or four decades have been ignoring the words of the statute and so we should continue to ignore the words of the statute.  And the way this came upÊ and listen, I'm willing to own some share of the blame on this.  This policy was created before I got here and there were some cases when I got here that I went along with and then finally, in 200, there was a case where I certainly thought and I was certainly not the only one that the volunteer activity that I think it was the Utah State Republican Party was doing was so minimal, they hadÊ they brought it from the commercial vendor to a place where the volunteers moved it around a little bit and brought it back to the commercial vendor that then picked it up and did the rest of the project.  The amount of volunteer activity in that one was so slender that I certainly didn't feel like it satisfied any standard at all, and at the same time, recognizing that for years and years and years, the Commission had just making this standard weaker and weaker and weaker.  I didn't feel like I could ding them for it.
    I won't single out this one as the one we will try to penalize, but it doesn't mean that it's okay with the statute.  That's with we tried to come up with a policy.  And I think there was a real misunderstanding amongst Commissioners as to what that policy was going to say, because theÊ you know, if you want to get into the weeds of it a little bit, the but for standard that has been proposedÊ and I think it's a little bitÊ I think it's a little bit inaccurate the way the policies suggest that the but for standard has been employed by the Commission in the past.  There's a little bit of verbal ledger domain going on and slight of hand in the way it's worded where there's MURs cited in the footnote and the claim is made that the Commission has applied this but for statute in the past.
    I went back and read a bunch of those old statements.  I was looking at the same one you were reading from and a bunch of others since then.
    >> MATTHEW PETERSEN: Put not as easily searchable.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: Going through the microfiche.  It's not indexed.  So literally, I was trolling through that.
    >> MATTHEW PETERSEN: We probably went through all 280 pages simultaneously.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: And if only I should have thought I should have skipped to the end first.  The document that you read from, which was the key document, was the last document in the file.
    I don't think any of those statements or FMLAs use the term "but for."  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't see it anywhere.  I think this is a new construction that you and Commissioner, former Commissioner McGahn came up with in 2010 as your interpretation, but the Commission has never adopted a but for standard.  So to the extent it has in the past, I think that is inaccurate.  And I think the but for standard is too easy to manipulate, but for the guy who unlocks the door where theÊ the commercial vendor has stored all the mailbag so that the commercial vendor can then take the mail to the truck and bring it to the post office.  The mail couldn't have done out.  But for the guy who turned on the lights, they wouldn't have known what mailbags to move.  You could come one all type of but for circumstances and there was an early proposal by Commissioner Walther that bulked up the definition of substantial participation, and you took that stuff out, which suggests to me that it is, in fact, intended to be a very, very lax standard that doesn't require substantial participation.
    If you do any one of these things it will satisfy the standard.  So ID. you know, to the extent that you are suggesting that this policy codifies some standard that the committee has adopted before, I think that's inaccurate.  To the extent that you are suggesting that it codifies a standard that would guarantee substantial volunteer participation, I think that it doesn't.  And I think that what has happened is that the entireÊ the entire purpose of this, I believe, was supposed to be provide materials that would be used by the volunteers, and the volunteersÊ the focus would be on the volunteers being active in party politics and at the grass roots level and in communicating with voters.
    And instead, the whole thing has been turned on its head so that the materials are produced commercially.  The volunteer participation is minimal, and the volunteers are hauled in to do something that's completely unnecessary, only so that the party can claim the benefit of the volunteer exemption, which, you knowÊ and this is what's really going on.  The parties like it because it enables them to put out a bunch of mail and not have it be subject to the ordinary coordinated spending limit that they would have with their party committees.  Again, Congress could rewrite this.  There has been a lot of talk in Congress about the coordinated spending limit and whether it should be raised or obliterated and Congress could plainly do that, but that's what this is realÊ that's watt party committees really like about this.  It's free mail for them.
    It's not free, they have to pay for it, but it doesn't count against what would otherwise be a spending limit.  And that is what is driving the use of this provision, not some desire to get more people involved at the grass roots level, and to employ them in some meaningful way that's going to get them excited about party politics.  I can't think of anything, you know, less likely to do that than saying, here we want you to sit in a room and bundle mail for us as opposed to comingÊ printing up materials that volunteers can use when they are out in the community trying to talk to voters.  That's where you want to encourage volunteer activity, out there talking to voters, not sitting in a room behind closed doors moving bundles around so that you can get more out of your coordinated spending limit.  But, you know, that'sÊ so substantively, I have a lot of problems with the policy that's in front of us, even in terms of what you say you are trying to accomplish, but it's still, you know, going back again.  The fact that the Commission has for perhaps decades been interpretingÊ coming up with interpretations of the law that are, I think, fundamentally inconsistent of law, does not preclude us from sitting here and saying, you know what, Commissioners have been getting wrong for years, make for decades and we do have an obligation to stick to the statute andÊ and I don't see how this does that.
    And as I said, I think there's a real problem with Commissioners and there's no problem with us changing the problem prospectively.  That'sÊ I agree with you.  It would be a problem to suddenly switch, you know, switch it up in the course of an enforcement action and say we have never penalized anybody for this, before but you are going to be the guy that we will penalize.  That's why I agreed with you guys in that Utah case.
    But to announce prospectively, you know what, the Commission is going to interpret the law the way it's written and it doesn't seem to allow for commercial mailing operations where you bring in a couple of volunteers and give them a pizza and have them do some administerial act here.  There's no problem in us doing it in that fashion.
    It's never been challenged in court.  Obviously, there's been a number of complaints along the years but whether aÊ a court would ever look at those words and say, oh, yeah, that makes sense, I justÊ I have a hard time seeing it.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Commissioner Petersen.
    >> MATTHEW PETERSEN: Thank you, Madam Chair.  If the Commission has been getting it wrong all along, then they probably were getting it wrong right from the very beginning because there wasÊ like we saidÊ like he said at the outset, direct mail, I guess it means different things to different people.  I think that the agency right from the outset, I think the direct, before the mail, was an important modifier, and even looking at the explanation and justification from 1980, when talking about direct mail, it talks about mailings from lists developed by a state or local committee are permissible.  And later on talking about subsection b, 16, 431, 8, b, xi and incorporated the definition of direct mail from the house report that was at issue and it talks about a mailing by a candidate from a list of contributor to his or her campaign, a list of volunteers who volunteered to work for his or her campaign or other types of list developed by the candidate would not be considered direct mail.
    So it seems from the outset that this was some effort and understanding and maybe being closer in time to what the authors of theÊ of this provision had in mind, was helpful, but it seems clear from the outset that there was a distinction being drawn between direct mail and other types of mail, and that distinction appears to have been followed for 40 years.
    Now, maybe they got it wrong at the outset, but I guess it's never been challenged either way, our Commission interpretation.  I don't think there's been an AA suit over a dismissal of a complaint saying we got direct mail wrong for 40 years.  I think probably if there was an AA suit, I'm speculating here, but I'm guessing that a consistent process of drawing that distinction with respect to an undefined term would probably be entitled to a substantial amount of deference.
    So I guess there's theÊ you know a big picture issue whether we can find common ground, whether or not we can agree that direct mail and mail that involves aÊ a substantial volunteer component that that's a distinction that's a legitimate distinction to draw.
    If we think it's a legitimate distinction to draw, then we can find some consensus at some point.
    If we don't, and I won't brow beat anyone into thinkingÊ everyone will have to bring their own thinking to this process, then obviously, that's a divide that can't beÊ that can't be bridged.
    If it is aÊ if it is a distinction that others think is legitimate, then I'm certainly open to considering what we think isÊ what should be the quantum of involvement that is necessary to avail themselves of thisÊ of this exemption.
    I would agree that I don't think the but for language has probably been in past statements of reasons.  And I think that the effort was trying to maybe distill what was being said in prior statements of reasons.  Maybe it was successful, maybe it was not.  But it's an effortÊ I think that the primary purpose underlying the effort here is to have there be a standard that is readily knowable by state and local parties, that's readily knowable by our own audit division and office of general counsel so that it's not aÊ a guessing game.  I think there was an effort to try to say if you meet certain, you knowÊ you know, certain activities, you know, whether it'sÊ you need toÊ that it really needs to be controlled by volunteers from the moment that you receive a mail piece from a vendor, until it goes to the post office, whether or not, you know, five or six of them are necessary to meet.  I think the real purpose is to add clarity so that everybody within all sides, everybody in the building and those undertaking these mailing programs at the state and local level know what will be satisfactory to the Commission and what's not.
    I think what was murky before was how many of these activities were necessary.  I think parties were guessing, trying to draw standards from various MURs that have taken place but there was never an articulation from the Commission as to what was going to be sufficient.  I think that is the importantÊ the important core of what this is trying to achieve.
    What quantum I think is available for negotiation and discussion.  IfÊ but, again, that assumes that the distinction between direct mail and volunteer mail is one that you think is legitimate.  And if you do, then I would certainly hope that we can keep this discussion open.  If not, then we'll have to agree to disagree, I guess. 
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Madam Vice Chair.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: I wanted to throw into the mix that there is a regulatory definition of direct mail and it says in 11 CFR 100.147 (A) that the exemption does not apply to general public communications or political advertising and, you know, we could talk about whether these mass mailings could be construed as anything else.  I think we do consider them general public communications in other contexts.  The payment may not be for costs incurred with any broadcasting, newspaper, magazine, billboard, direct mail or similar type of general political advertising.  For the purposes of this paragraph, the term direct mail means any mailing, (s) by a commercial vendor or any mailing (S) made from commercial lists.
    And, you know, in 1979, there were probably still oldfashioned mailing parties that commercial vendors weren't actually involved in, but today virtually all of the mail is handled by commercial vendors and as I said, you know, theÊ the state parties interrupt the normal practices of the commercial vendors and say, wait, wait, we have to bring some volunteers in here at some point in order to try to take advantage of this exemption.
    So, I mean, I'm happy to keep talking about it, but I think it isÊ it is hard to say that the mail that is being produced is not in this day and age, is not mailing by a commercial vendor. 
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Commissioner Goodman. 
    >> LEE GOODMAN: If we are discussingÊ first, let me just say that, you know, obviously I associate myself with the opinions here of Commissioner Petersen.
    It strikes me that it is a perfectÊ if we are going to discuss the interpretation of statute, it is a perfectly reasonable interpretation of this statute to define direct mail as that type of mail that is wholly turned over to a commercial direct mail operation and they perform all the services to send that mail out to the public.  And that's what makes direct mail in this context similar to the other forms of advertising in this statute.
    Volunteers are not typically involved in broadcasting.  You cut the ad, you turn it over to the TV station, it runs and there is no role for volunteers to disseminate that message through the facilities of a broadcasting station.  The same with a newspaper.  Once you make the ad and you give it to the newspaper, the newspaper publishes that communication.  So that's what groups these types of things and I think it's reasonable to say that that's the same concept captured by the use of direct mail here and in the regulation.  It's not much of a gloss on the regulation, where it says mailings by a commercial vendor to mean 100% turned over to the commercial vendor for the commercial vendor from start to finish to design, produce, print, mail, disseminate and do everything. 
    Once you accept that type of definition, for what direct mail means, that gives you some room to interpret, to put other types of mailings intoÊ to read that into the volunteer activities contemplated under subsection 9 of 30101.  For example, the example given, brochures and party tabloids.  Tern certainly, we will not put a gloss that says if party volunteers mail the tabloid to people, that somehow that is not an exempt activity.  Or the party's brochure.  If volunteers mail the brochure, all of a sudden, you aren't entitled to the exemption that Congress clearly provided.
    So this is clearly an issue as council noted earlier about the degree of involvement of the volunteer activity.  But it's a perfectly reasonable read and it's been the read that hasÊ that has animated this Commission's treatment of this rule forÊ as Commissioner Petersen saysÊ nearly 40 years.  I wouldn't graft mailing restrictions on the volunteer brochures and party tabloids that are provided for by Congress and Congress has known of this Commission's treatment of this law for 40 years, and from BICRA which enhanced some aspects of party role to the disclose act, to the cromnibus, Congress has never looked at second guessing the Commission's treatment of this volunteer activity.
    Now, I look at the but for testÊ the but for test and the discussion over that precedes my time here.  I think the but for test is too restrictive.  Once you have volunteer involvement, because the languageÊ if youÊ if you accept that you can narrowly define direct mail, in the statute, and allow for some mail of brochures and party tabloids and other communications, to be permitted under Section (b) (ix) of 30101, the only limitation then in the statute is that it be in connection with volunteerÊ excuse me, volunteer activities.
    Not that it be but for or necessary or that it be in connection with volunteer activities.  And so I don't think we have to denigrate the good work that the state and local parties have been doing for 40 years, engaging volunteers.  And I have seen some of these in my history, and it's not just moving bags around.
    They actually have people in preparing the envelopes, stuffing the envelopes.  You have people in many cases affixing the labels some cases.  Thousand technology is eclipsing that volunteer role.  But just because the party can avail itself of new technologies doesn't mean that we remove the volunteer exemption when volunteers are engaged with the technology that helps to produce the direct mail that they will deliver to theÊ to the U.S. Postal Service and mail out to people.
    And finally, I will just close that that is the technical statutory read that I come to in this.  Needless to say, it is somewhat informed by the first amendment and policy issues at stake here which is that we want to encourage and strengthen state and local political parties and this is one area of great utility and a significant role that they have played for 40 years and it continues to bring utility to state parties, which are good democratic grassroots institutions in our democratic process.
    And so if weÊ if under the terms of the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia, it is our job to interpret this and consider first amendment principles at stake in how we interpret this, I would certainly consider those realities and the role of state parties and bring that to bear in how I draw these distinctions.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Madam Vice Chair.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: I realize we are reaching the point of diminishing utility, but I just want to respond to one small aspect of that, because I appreciate your engaging with me on the statute.  I really do.
    But to say they said in here that there's an exemption for the payment of the cost of campaign materials like brochures, clearly they couldn't have meant that the volunteer can't mail the brochure.  Well, the very next sense says provided that the payments are not for the cost of direct mail.  So I don't think it's clear at all.
    Now, if theÊ if the volunteer is sitting there and literally as you say stuffing the envelope with the brochure and mailing it, maybe, but that's not the way anybody does it anymore.  I mean, it justÊ nobody is stuffing envelopes anymore, unless it is a really, really, really small campaign.  Are I don't think state party organizations are stuffing envelopes anymore.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Have you ever worked on one of these mailing operations?  The volunteer mailÊ
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: I have not.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Okay.  Because some of us have and we have talked about this before and know as Commissioner goodman said that these really do happen.  I keep wondering if you are the counsel to one of these state parties and the party executive director calls you up and says, hey, we want to do a volunteer mail program.  What are the requirements?  And the lawyer says, well, let me get right back to you.  He goes back and reads all of this microfiche you guys are talking about or tries to read the campaignÊ
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: Nobody will do that.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: They shouldn't have to do that.  They go back and try to distill what the answer is, they come back and they say the heck if I know!  I have no idea what you are supposed to do in order to allow the party to do theseÊ to do volunteer mail, to take advantage of the provisions that Commissioner Petersen and Commissioner Goodman just talked about.
    What was well put and what you said was that I think it's either the first or second timeÊ it might be the second time, I'm not sure, that I think you articulated that essentiallyÊ I don't mean in this a derogatory way, you kind of want to go back to the statute and take sort of a fresh look at it.
    And IÊ you are right, that that's different than some of the statements that you signed off on in the past, including the Missouri Democratic State Committee, I think in 2007, a statement signed by Bob Lenhard, and Hans Von Spakovsky and yourself, where you sign off on the Missouri Democrat Party not doing a whole lotÊ I can read it.  It's notÊ I think from your perspective, based on what you said today, I don't think you would think it's substantial.  And so minds change and all of that sort of thing, but it seemed like you were sayingÊ and correct me if I'm wrong, that in the context of the MURs, the enforcement matters, at the end of the day, you don't want to ding someone who didn't really know what the law is about what to do.
    So that puts them in an obviously, you know, very precarious position of trying to figure out on the front end, how to advise the state parties and the national parties are in the same, you know, predicament because they are getting calls all the time from the state parties saying what do you mean you don't know what we are supposed to do.
    I think I mentioned I was on a team on the RNC and we went around to the state parties and tried to teach them campaign finance law and explain to them what to do.  I remember laughing.  You are kidding me.  You are supposed to ride on the mail truck at the time that the RNC was telling people to ride on the mail truck, which is crazy to me.  I know they don't do that anymore.  This has a long sorted history and it seems as if you at least want to go back andÊ back to the beginning and sort of revisit some of the previous interpretations.  And that's at least somewhat newsworthy from my perspective.  I don't know if you said it before in an open meeting.  It might have been a second time but it's either the first or second time from my perspective.
    Going back to what Commissioner WaltherÊ and so I'm not sure.  I'm happy to talk in the future, but I'm not sure along the lines of what Commissioner Petersen said, if there's such a vast departure on the interpretation of this statute itself, and whether or not it's even possible for direct mail to be anything other than commercially produced.  I'm happy to try, always, as I told you a couple of weeks ago, but I think your interpretation as it stands now it basically reads the volunteer mail out of the statute, which is what I told you when we had this same conversation in my office a couple of weeks ago.  I think that's essentially what you are doing.
    If seems as ifÊ and I certainly don't want to put words in his mouth.  It seems that Commissioner Walther, based on what he put out in July, this past summer, at leaf is willing to entertain the notion that there may be enough involvement to qualify a mail for the volunteer mail exemption and the specifically why we were not in favor of what he proposed, he goes through the same four bullets we have in our policy but at the end of it, his sentence is, each of these examples of volunteer activity will be considered by the Commission in its determination of whether or not there has been substantial volunteer involvement in order to satisfy the distribution by volunteers aspects of the volunteer exemption.
    This list is not determinative or exhaustive.  Again, I don't mean this to be derogatory, but the way we read this was, you can do some of this stuff we proposed to you, but even if you do it, it may not be enough because we pay notÊ we are not really sure.  We've gotÊ we've gotÊ we'll consider it, basically and that's the way we read it.  Maybe I'm reading it wrong but we read it as you can do some of these things but it may not be enough, and we were going for something that was far more definitive.
    If someone wants to come up with a list of substantial volunteer involvement that if people are able to do with some clarity, you know, maybe you have to have more than one bullet or something like that, where we are willing to consider that.
    As I said earlier, I think there's some utility to voting today, but that doesn't mean that we are not willing and able to talk at any moment, including this afternoon.  We can calendar it again at the next public meeting.  I think that might be the right approach for today but I'm not sure that based on what have you said on this statutory provision that it'sÊ that it's something that we are going to be able to talk through, work through.  Madam Vice Chair.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: Thank you, Madam Chair.  I want to clarify something because you said that I'm saying something new for the first time today.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: It might be the second time.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: Well, going back to 2009 or '10, when we first started.  I mean, theÊ it was the Utah case in 2009 that really brought this to the fore, and you are right.  I hadÊ I had gone along and a couple of other cases before that, that were, I have thought consistent with other cases that the Commission had handled in the past, but the Utah really brought me up short.  I thought this really is theÊ this is very close to what Commissioner Petersen has described as bringing in the volunteers for the blessing of the mail.  You know, there'sÊ it seemed like there was so little volunteer involvement that I couldn't possibly pass any reasonable standard.  That's what caused me to go back and take a fresh look at the statute and try to harmonize it and I was struggling to do so ever since.
    I think it's really interesting that you just said that I'm reading the volunteer mail exemption out of the statute.  That's because there is no volunteer mail exemption in the statute.  The statute talks about volunteer materials.  No where in the statute does it say that there's an exemption for volunteer mail.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: You are reading the volunteer materials out of the statute.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: There are plenty of items in there, but not in connection with the commercial mailing operation, I don't think.  So I just think that's informative that, you know, you have got it so engrained in your head that that's the way you talk about it.  You talk about the volunteer mail exemption all the time.  That's not what the statuteÊ
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: That's how the state parties talk about it.  That's how they have been doing it for years.  It's been going on since the late '70s, '80s.  That's just how people talk about it.  I have hate to break it to you.  That's how it goes down on street.  I meanÊ
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: That's fine, but that's not what the statute says.
    >> LEE GOODMAN: I hear two arguments.  One is gee, if the volunteers were handwriting the envelopes, licking the stamp, pulling out their crayons and magic markers and writing a political message, folding it, putting it and walking it down to the mailbox, I think you would permit.
    That would you say that might be a volunteer material, and not direct mail.  But that your relate concern is that the technology has become so automated in these that the volunteer involvement is so minimal that it's look more like direct mail.  Am I right that that is part of your argument?  Because we have two arguments going here.  One is as a matter of law, whether any mail can fit as a volunteer material or whether all mail is considered direct mail. 
    And secondly, if that's not the case, if there is room for mailing something under the volunteer materials exemption, it's a matter of degree.  How much activity is necessary and I guess I want to understand your argument.  Is it the former or the latter?
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: I think you are slightly getting it wrong.  The Commission has defined direct mail as mail that's sent out by commercial vendor.  So if you have the volunteers and I don't think they need to use crayons.  I think they can use computers.
    >> LEE GOODMAN: Use computers.  So we are making progress.  Use of computers is okay.
    (Laughter).
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: If you haveÊ I believe that this wasÊ to the extent that they contemplated that mail would be involved at all, it was in the context of an oldfashioned mailing party.  You know what I'm talking about and it never involved crayons where the volunteers really were doing all the work.
    Or, you knowÊ I mean, they didn't make the envelopes themselves.  They bought the envelopes, right?  But the volunteers were helping to create the actual things that they would then stuff into the envelope and stamp and put in the mail and that is very different from a commercial mail operation, which is the way everybody does it.  And maybe what Congress had in mind in 1979 just doesn't happen anymore.  That doesn't mean that we get to stay, West Nile Virus, they must have meant for it to apply to something so we'll have to make it apply to something else that they didn't have in mind.
    >> LEE GOODMAN: So just soÊ and I think we understand each other.  It's the degree of volunteer activity that concerns you?  And you are concerned that with modern technologies and the use of outside vendors to assist in the volunteer activity, more of these are what you conceive of direct mail under SectionÊ301 (B) 9 subpart 1.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: What the regulation says is direct mail.
    >> LEE GOODMAN: Right.
    If it's done by the commercial vendor, solely by the commercial vendor.  My point then is we are left with thisÊ and you said it earlier, it's not clear at all.  We are left with an interpretive problem.  How much volunteer activity is sufficient to fall within the volunteer materials exemption and how much begins to look more like a definition that this Commission has given to direct mail and its regulation.  And so we are in an interpretive activity right now.  We are interpreting the act, but that's a far cry from where we started this discussion, which is to say the statute doesn't allow this.
    So I feel quite comfortable that as long as it is in connection with volunteer activities, that it is not direct mail under the statute.  It is not being turned over and controlled from start to finish by a commercial vendor just like you would commercial broadcast advertising, newspaper advertising and billboards, where there is no role for volunteers.  Where there is a role for volunteers, I think we are well within our rights to interpret that as not being direct mail, as we have for 40 years and now we are merely discussing how much volunteer activity is necessary.  That's a very different debate that we are having.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: I don't want you putting words in my mouth, because what I said was I'm looking both at the statute and to the regulation, which defines direct mail as mail that isÊ I forget the verb that's used in the regulation, produced or distributed byÊ hang.  Direct mail means any mailing byÊ there is no verb.  Any mailings by a commercial vendor or are made from commercial lists.
    So it's notÊ it's not clear to me that there is any way that volunteersÊ I mean, let's put it this way.  I haven't seen a case, certainly not recently and I would have toÊ I don't want to say make any overbroad statements because I don't have every single case in my head, but theÊ as I think about the cases now, I can't think of any that didn't involve a commercial vendor in the way that the regulations appears to say makes it ineligible for theÊ for the exemption.
    So I don't think that we're talking aboutÊ and when you start talking about degree and 100%, I mean, I suppose we could get into a debate over whether volunteers could so substantially participate in what is otherwise a commercial operation that it would make it not mailings by a commercial vendor, but it's a little bit pardon for me to contemplate that and I don't think that is certainly not the norm of what we see.
    You know, if you are saying, well it's not 100% done by a commercial vendor because 2% of the work was done by volunteers, that'sÊ that for sure is not going to do it for me.
    >> LEE GOODMAN: Okay.  I think we made some progress at least.  This is not precluded by the statute.  It is interpretive and now we are discussing degree of volunteer involvement.  You just said, it is aÊ we would look at percentages, for example.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: No, I think you are looking at percentages.
    >> LEE GOODMAN: You just said that 2% wouldn't be enough and I inferred from that, that 80% would be enough.
    Let me ask you this, what happens if the state party, rather than hiring an outside vendor takes in a direct mail operation inhouse, and the party owns it, operates it and runs it?  Then you bring in volunteers to engage in the same 2% of activity.  Does that change your analysis?  I take it it would be under the statute and under the definition of the regulation that there's somethingÊ there is something magical about employing an outside commercial vendor than doing all the same automated operations inhouse and I ask this because with the innovations in technology, more and more of the printing, the production, of direct mail could be taken in house.  Does that change your analysis?
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: It's an interesting idea.  We haven't seen that.  I mean, that has not been presented to us, but, you know, if you areÊ it's not magic.  It's what's in the regulation.  The regulation says commercial vendor.  So if you are saying if you take the commercial vendor out of the equation, does it change it?  It might.  I haven't seen that.  But it might.
    >> LEE GOODMAN: Let me speak to a higher authority which is the first amendment.  Why would we restrict the party more just because they outsource an activity than if they take the activity inhouse and pay it themselves?  Why is it that they lose their first amendment right when they hire an outside vendor to do what they might be able to do in house and call it a disbursement and call it overhead of the heart?
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: Nobody is losing their first amendment rights.
    >> LEE GOODMAN: Oh, yes, there are limits on these contributions.
    If you treat them as contributions.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: That's what the statute says and what the Supreme Court has upheld.  So just, you knowÊ
    >> LEE GOODMAN: Somehow if I own the printing press, that would be a different statutory result than if I rent the printing press from a commercial vendor, with the same amount of volunteer activity.
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: Because there are words in the statute and we have to apply them.  We can't make them up and say, you know, what we think they should have written different words and that would beÊ that would vindicate more first amendment freedoms.  Well, maybe it would, or maybe it wouldn't, but these are the words that are in the statute and in the regulation and it talks about commercial vendors and it talks about direct mail and that's really of the only words that we can interpret.
    >> LEE GOODMAN: And as I indicated earlier, I walked you through my statutory analysis and I reached the same result through a statutory analysis and interpreting the regulation, and I do so in a first amendment sensitive way, which the court of appeals has told us is our duties.  Volunteer activities in connection with mailings is permissible under SectionÊ301.01b9. 
    >> ELLEN WEINTRAUB: Only if you ignore b10.  I'm not sure if that is the designation.
    >> LEE GOODMAN: I don't ignore it.  I interpret direct mail narrowly. 
    >> MATTHEW PETERSEN: We may be getting to the point of diminishing returns.
    The one point I would like to point out, I don't think involvement of a commercial vendor is the linchpin in this particular provision.  I'm talking about the volunteer materials exemption at large.  I would assume that every item, the ones that are even specifically listed in the permissible, the pins, bumper stickers are being produced by the volunteers themselves.  Obviously, you will hire out someone to put those together.  Frankly when you go back and look at the house and the senate debates, revolving around the 1979 amendments, its clear that the involvement of paid professionals and commercial vendors at some levels in the operations or at least in the production of the materials, unless someone has a different point of view and thinks that only yard signs actually made with markers by a commercial vendor.
    So there will be commercial vendors producing, for example, the mail.  ThatÊ there would be commercial vendors tar producing pins, bumper stickers and so on and so forth.  And so the way I viewed this is when I look at direct mail, I think the modification of direct to mail means something.  And I think there's plenty of precedent both in explanation justifications, the treatment of theseÊ of complaints and audits that have dealt with this issue over 30 or 40 years.  But I think that it reallyÊ I think the crux of it, as I look at it, comes down to the distribution issue.  And what level of involvement in the distribution is considered sufficient in order for the volunteer materials, protections to kick in.
    So just because a commercial mail house produces a piece, I don'tÊ I view that similar to commercial vendors that are producing bumper stickers, pins, pamphlets and so forth.  It's when you have a commercial vendor that's also taking care of all the elements of distribution as well that puts it in the category of direct mail as opposed to when you have volunteers handling multiple elements of distribution, up until the point of actually delivering it to the post office.
    So I justÊ I just wanted to raise that point as part of the reasoning behind the reason why I could support moving forward on aÊ on a policy similar to the one that we have in front of us.  And like I said, if there is some interest and ability for us to maybe think about weighing the different levels of the involvement that we think should be required in order for this exemption to kick in, I would hope we would be able to do so and certainly my door is always open to talk further on that matter.
    So thanks. 
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Thank you.  Commissioner Walther.
    >> STEVE WALTHER: I associate myself with Commissioner Weintraub.  I proposed something last July, and I still adhere to that.
    The draft you presented today has some issues for me that still don't get there, and I just point out a couple of them.  In the draft I pointed out in July, that the various criteria need to be substantial, and that was taken out of this draft.  And when that's taken out, that means okay, then what?
    And then you get into a degree or even the substantial gets to you a degree, but it gets you closer.  So that leaves it open forÊ to basically suggest that any of these items are fine, which mine also says too.  But if you just do one of them only, and it's only so much, that's also fine.  And I'm not willing to go that far at this point.
    So to me, it'sÊ as we said several times, it is to a matter of degree.  He of I wouldn't foreclose the idea that one particular factor can do it.  Maybe it can.  But it depends on what it is.  And all of these, I think, unless you interpret it that you do one regardless of the degree, it's okay, then audit probably makes that easy.  But if we do anything other than that, then audit still has its own issues with determining whether or not it's some kind of significant activity.
    For me, I'm not willing to jettison theÊ the basic policy was to encourage substantial individual participation, encourage it, not just put it in because you have to, but really get people out, get excited, get something done.  If it has that meaningful result, then that's, you know, something to consider.
    Regarding the but for, in some cases the but for makes sense, but it's not to me the end all in the analysis, and so I think it's a factor to discuss, but I wouldn't use that as the exclusive factor in any one particular given case.
    I would point out that even in the draft proposed byÊ that's on the table hereÊ and I would like to put mine on the table now if I would have thought about it, but I didn't.  We still see a situation where considering evidence of volunteer participation, the Commission has previously considered and will continue to consider various types of evidence respecting the extent to which if at all volunteer material exemptions is applicable and then we go into photographs, sign off in sheets, affidavits for which I have some issues with respect to a couple of past experiences with affidavits.  I'm not sure that they solve the problem for audit if we are talking about those particular activities anyhow.  So IÊ I think there's a number of factors that probably can be worked through, but I still think we can't eliminate the requirement that has to be configured in such a way that it's anything other than significant or substantial.
    I'm not able to support this draft, but I'm willing to keep cranking away and I think this discussion was good.  Let's see if we can't ultimately come up with something.  And maybe in the meantime, now that you have had the benefit of pros and cons that audit couldÊ you know, that general counsel could add, some suggestions that maybe they think they are worth considering.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Thank you, Commissioner, Walther.  We are happy to keep talking at any time that you would like to, if you would like to provide edits to our proposal or start with some edits to the one you proposed last summer, that'sÊ we're happy to take a look at it.
    As I have told you before, one of the issues with just throwing out there a substantial volunteer involvement, one of the issues that we have with your policy over the summer is that was not really defined in a way that people could objectively know what you meant by that.  That's why the list answers that question and provides the highest amount of guidance possible.  But the doors are always open.  We are happy to talk in the future.
    I think this conversation was very helpful and we better understand where we are on this issue, and maybe potentially some day in the future we can work it out but for now, we will at least know where people stand and I'm sure Lorenzo is standing this thinking, it's all solved for me now.  I know exactly what to do when I go back to working with the audit division this afternoon.  You are ready to go.
    Thanks again for all of your help on this issue.
    Is there a motion? 
    >> MATTHEW PETERSEN: Madam Chair.  Thank you, Madam Chair I would move approval of agenda document 1803A which is the proposed interim enforcement policy on volunteer mail exception.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Thank you.  Any discussion on the motion?  All those in favor. 
    [Êchorus of ayesÊ]
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Any opposed.
    [ÊChorus of nosÊ]
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER:  Commissioner Goodman, Peterson and I voted aye.  And Commissioner Walther and Weintraub voted no.
    Thank you.
    The next item is the proposed revisions to Forms 8 and 9.  The commissioners have since changed their votes to approve both Forms 8 and 9, but I think it would still be useful to hear from Mr.ÊBlume from the Office of General Counsel, just giving a sense, letting the public know what the forms are.  Thank you very much.
    >> Thank you, Madam Chair.  Agenda document 1802A presents for Commission consideration proposed revisions to FEC Forms 8 and 9.  Form 8 is used by terminating political committees to submit debt settlement plans for Commission review.  Form 9 is used to disclose disbursements for electioneering communications and should be filed within 24 hours of electioneering communications disbursement.  An interdisciplinary form committee, consisting of staff and multiple FEC offices.  The proposed revisions to Form 8 or intended to elicit additional information from terminating committees that Commission regulations require, including information of the regulations require the Commission to consider when evaluating a debt settlement plan.
    The proposed revisions to Form 9 would update that form by removing references to terms and regulatory provisions that have been rendered obsolete by the Supreme Court citizens united decision.
    Finally we have also proposed corresponding revisions to the instructions for completing the two forms.  I would be happy to answer any questions.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Thank you.  I appreciate the presentation and all the work you put into this over the past few years.  Thank you.
    Any questions, comments?  All right.  Excellent.  Well, that is the last matter on the agenda.  The Commission won't be meeting until after both groundhog day and Super Bowl Sunday.  So I just wanted to note that our fantastic Commission secretary, Dana Brown, who gets us through these public meetings and has for a number of years now, how long have you beenÊ just one year?  Oh, my goodness.  We're so used to all of your excellent work.  I'm told that she's a very avid Eagles fan of am I right?
    >> You are right.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Okay.  So you are getting ready for game day.
    >> Always ready.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Excellent.  Best of luke luck to you.  I wanted to send good wishes your way and we'll talk on FebruaryÊ5thÊand hopefully it goes well for you.  Excellent.
    Mr.ÊStaff director, are there any management or administrative matters that the Commission needs to discuss today besides football?
    >> Madam Chair, there are no such matters.
    >> CAROLINE HUNTER: Thank you.  This meeting is adjourned.  
    (End of meeting, 11:25 a.m.)