This file contains archived live captions of the open meeting of the Federal Election Commission held on April 28, 2016. This file is not a transcript of the meeting, and it has not been reviewed for accuracy or approved by the Federal Election Commission. >> SPEAKER: Good morning. The open meeting of the Federal Election Commission for Thursday, April 28th, 2016 will now come to order. Before we turn to the first agenda item, we have some late submitted documents for which we need to make a motion. Mr. Vice Chairman? >> SPEAKER: Thank you. I move to suspend the rules in order to submit the late submission of the following documents. Agenda document number -- inaudible -- enable midstream services, agenda document 16-18-B, draft B, for AO-2016-3, holding, number 16-13-B, proposed statement of policy, and agenda document number 16-18-C, draft C, for AO-2016-03, holding. >> SPEAKER: Is there any discussion on that motion? If none, all those in favor, indicate by saying I. Any opposed? Madam Secretary, that motion passes by a vote of six to zero. The first item on the agenda today has been submitted by Enable Midstream Services. We have Meredith Ledger representing Enable, and do we also have Brian Alford on the phone? >> SPEAKER: We should, Mr. Chairman. >> SPEAKER: Okay. Good morning to the both of you. Mr. Buckley is here to give his presentation, and good morning to you. >> SPEAKER: Good morning, Commissioners. This request was originally discussed at the April 14 open session. Since that meeting, the Commission has received additional information from the requester, a new draft in response to the request agenda document 16-17-B, containing draft B, has been prepared. It concludes that Enable will not be affiliated -- no comments on draft B. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. >> SPEAKER: Thank you very much for that presentation. Do we have any questions for our council for council for Enable or comments generally? I would then just first ask, um, Ms. Ledger and Mr. Alford, have you had a chance to review draft B, and to see if you had any comments on that draft. >> SPEAKER: We have. Thank you for the Commissioners and the Commission staff for preparing the draft. We feel like it much more accurately reflects the relationship between OGE and Enable in terms of the employees. >> SPEAKER: Mr. Alford, is there any comment that you would like to add? >> SPEAKER: No, Mr. Chairman. I would just concur with Meredith's comments. >> SPEAKER: Is there anything further? Commissioner Weintraub. >> SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to state that I am not going to be able to support draft B, and indeed, um, I'm not sure it will be put to a vote, but I would not support draft A either. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way these organizations are setup, but I do think that they are fairly well-entangled with each other and too much so to have separate SSS. >> SPEAKER: Commissioner Ravel. >> SPEAKER: I have a somewhat different perspective. I also wouldn't support draft B as it's written, because I'm concerned about the relationship with, I guess it's, I can't keep these straight, the relationship with OGE, as opposed to Center Point. I have no concerns whatsoever, I don't think those two are affiliated, and, so, in that respect, I agree with the view in draft B, but I'm concerned about the tiniousness of the length of the time that those 164 employees might still continue to be employed by the agencies, and, so, because of that, I wouldn't feel comfortable in saying that they're not affiliated at this time. If there were, you know, specific dates that we had, that was coming up soon, that would be different, but, um, it's a lot of employees, and it seems that that relationship is continuing. So, if there is some possibility that we could at least do a hybrid vote first, I'd be happy to support it with regard to OGE. >> SPEAKER: Okay. Let me just add that, um -- >> SPEAKER: Center Point. Excuse me. >> SPEAKER: Oh, yeah. I, um, you know, when the time comes to support motions, I'll be supporting draft B. As I was looking at this, um, looking to see if there's any meaningful ongoing relationship, and in the draft, it says that there is affiliation, which is draft A, even that one notes that there is no controlling interest that OGE Energy has in Enable. The governance, they mention that's a factor, but not a heavily weighted factor, because they don't have a, kind of a majority governing interest over this organization, the hiring authority, as it's said, Enable has its own discretion to retain or to let the employees go at their will, and there's also no provision of funding or providing of goods, and, so, when I look at that and see that Enable reimburses OGE Energy for any salary payments that are made and for any benefit costs, the fact that 70 percent of the, I believe it's 164 employees, that are the ones that issue or are retirement eligible, and it's anticipated that within a year or shortly thereafter, um, those employees are likely to, almost all will have likely retired, and that this really is just kind of a paperwork issue, where, um, these long-term employees of OGE Energy, who are then sukeneded to Enable, are then, like I said, it is a paperwork arrangement, where a payment is made by, um, Enable that is reimbursed, excuse me, the salary and benefits that are paid by OGE Energy are reimbursed by Enable. All of these working together, I think that the sort of affiliation that we're concerned about is where you have organizations that are so closely aligned, where you have an individual or a group of individuals that run a number of companies, organizations that fall under the same umbrella, where we have these affiliation rules to ensure that the integrity of the contribution limits are maintained so that they can't setup connected paths for each one of these organizations and then be able to give $5,000 from each of these to a candidate or candidate's committee. In this case, as I really look at it, I am hard-pressed to think of how this arrangement could lead to the potential busting of the contribution limits. To the extent that there's a relationship, it is not an ongoing one in the sense that OGE Energy does not, kind of as a matter of course, provide employees to Enable. As I mentioned, there are unique circumstances which give rise to this situation, and those unique circumstances will soon expire in the very near future, and, so, when we step back and look at what purpose the affiliation rules are designed to serve, um, the arrangement that has been presented here by the requester, I just don't see how this would, in any way, undermine the integrity of the contribution limits that I believe animate the affiliation rules. So, um, I think that, um, that the analysis in draft B hits it on the head, and, so, when I, when the motion, the appropriate motion is made, I will support draft B. Are there any further questions or comments? Mr. Vice Chairman. >> SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also, this is a really close one for me, so I've gone back and forth, to be honest with you, a number of times. Certainly, a bifurcated motion, but in looking at it, um, from the information you provided, and thank you very much for that, it shows that we have 35 senior managers on the list, 26 supervisors, 9 managers, 6 senior directors, and 7 directors, 32 percent of which seem to be of a managerial level, so it's not just, um, people who will not have meaningful governance and supervision on the operation for a period of time, I think the thing that turns me toward going for a non-affiliation is the fact that, um, we're being told that you're going to be out of business, in terms of those employees, by 2017, which if that's the case, there's a little bit of a deminmous issue. I also wonder if there's a big hurry, at this point, to not wait 18 months and then just come back and find no problem here. So, that's one of the things, and also, I see that there's a voting parody, but there's not necessarily, um, economic parody, because I think OGE Energy is 60 percent, and Center Point is 40, which, sometimes, really drives the governance more, the voting sometimes follows the money, so I'm not convinced that absolute parody exists just because of voting. For those reasons, I'm going to stick with draft A. >> SPEAKER: Are there any further questions or comments? From what I heard, there would be support for the portions of draft B relating to Center Point. Now, we don't have those neatly divided into, you know, into separate questions, but I would just turn to council and just, if there were a motion that was more or less that we approve the portions of draft B pertaining to the non-affiliation between Center Point and Enable, would that be sufficient guidance, so that whatever could garner four votes, we'd be able to put that together fairly easily? >> SPEAKER: Yes. I just want to clarify, in the analysis section, and we can do that easily, in the facts section, the two companies are somewhat intertwined, so we would, generally, in this situation, keep the facts section as is, unless otherwise directed, and then the analysis, we would bifurcate as the votes dictated. >> SPEAKER: Okay. So, I think what we're going to do is Commissioner Hunter will make a motion with respect to draft B and totality, and if that fails, then we'll have a follow-up motion with respect to the elements of the opinion that deal with Center Point. Commissioner Hunter. >> SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move approval of agenda document number 16-17-B, which is draft B of the Enable advisory opinion. >> SPEAKER: Is there any discussion on that motion? If none, all those in favor, indicate by saying I. Any opposed? Madam Secretary, that vote, that motion fails by a vote of three to three, with Commissioners Goodman, Hunter and myself in favor -- >> SPEAKER: Could I -- >> SPEAKER: Yes, Commissioner Ravel? >> SPEAKER: Could I make one thought on whoever does the next motion? Perhaps we could also ask OGE to incorporate some of the factual information that was contained in B, draft B, which I thought was really helpful, in the next one, the one that I'm going to support. >> SPEAKER: So, if we were to make a motion with respect to draft B, but those portions, so, I assume that the motion would be that we would incorporate the factual background, and then the proportions of the analysis that pertain to the non-affiliation between Center Point and Enable. >> SPEAKER: Right. Thank you. >> SPEAKER: Commissioner Hunter? >> SPEAKER: Thank you. I move approval of the factual portion of agenda document number 16-17-B, and in addition to that, the portions of draft B in the analysis section that pertain to Center Point Energy Incorporated. >> SPEAKER: Is that adequate? Okay, is that good? Madam Secretary, do you understand the motion? >> SPEAKER: Yes. Thank you. >> SPEAKER: Is there any further discussion on that motion? If none, all those in favor, indicate by saying I. Those opposed? Madam Secretary, that motion passes by a vote of five to one. Thank you for your requests. >> SPEAKER: Thank you. >> SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >> SPEAKER: Mr. Chairman? >> SPEAKER: Yes? >> SPEAKER: We were under the impression there was going to be a vote on the remainder of draft B. >> SPEAKER: Well, we did the -- >> SPEAKER: Didn't that fail three to three? >> SPEAKER: We did the motion on draft B in total, and then we just did the narrower motion when that failed, with respect to the parts that we could agree on, and we got the five votes. >> SPEAKER: Okay. I apologize. >> SPEAKER: Not a problem. >> SPEAKER: We need to formally direct you to advise them that we could not answer that second part. >> SPEAKER: We'll turn next to item two on our agenda, which is consideration of 2016-03, George Holding for Congress Inc. We have Mr. Shawn Wright and Nevans from the Office of General Council to give a presentation. We also have Brad Kapel, who's available here, council for the requester. Good morning to you, Mr. Wright, and when you're ready, please proceed. >> SPEAKER: Thank you. Before you is 16-18, which contains three draft responses to an advisory opinion request by Holding for Congress. The requester asks whether the Holding Committee may raise additional contributions, subject to a new contribution limit, for the North Carolina congressional primary election, moved from March 16th, 2015 to June 7th, 2016. Draft A concludes that the Holding Committee may not do so, because the June 7th, 2016 North Carolina congressional primarily election will be the only one held for the office. Drafts B and C conclude that the Holding Committee may raise additional primary contributions because the June 7th primary election is a different election from the March 15th election. The Commission received no comments on the request and one comment on the drafts. Thank you. I'd be happy to address any questions you have. >> SPEAKER: Thank you for that presentation. Draft C came out rather late, and I would, first of all, ask council whether or not you've had a chance to quickly skim through this, and if you have, whether or not there are any thoughts or ideas that you wanted to convey to us regarding that draft. >> SPEAKER: I have had a chance to review draft C, and I think it will be acceptable to my client. I have no comments or questions on it. >> SPEAKER: Okay. Thank you. Do we have any comments or questions regarding this draft? Commissioner Weintraub. >> SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm very happy that we're going to be able to answer this question for this requester, and, really, for everyone in North Carolina who is involved in these very unusual circumstances, where the district lines were suddenly all redrawn within weeks of when the election was supposed to be, and people had already started voting, and none of those votes got counted, and now there's going to be a new election in June. Pretty unusual circumstances. I had thought about whether we should make the new contribution limits available to just people who had substantially rewritten district lines, some people, some of the districts are pretty much, none of them are identical, some of them are very, very close to what they used to be, but I was persuaded by my colleagues for us to try and do that kind of line-drawing on the fly. Probably would not be a good idea, and we would, um, there could well be ripple effects throughout the state, of having everybody having to move around, and simplicity is a virtue, so we'll have the same rules for everyone, everyone will get a new contribution limit, and good luck to everybody, and I appreciate the efforts of my colleagues too, working together to come to an answer. I think it's a good result. >> SPEAKER: Are there any other further questions or comments? I'll just echo what Commissioner Weintraub said, that I think that this was an example where I think the Commissioners, and especially our staff, really worked productively to handle a request that does, um, capture some rather unusual circumstances, and I think we've been able to arrive at a draft that reaches a satisfactory answer, so I commend my colleagues for the way in which we were able to reach an answer on this, and I'll be happy to support draft C, when that motion is made. Are there any further comments? Commissioner Ravel? >> SPEAKER: Let me just add, first of all, thank you very much for coming. I know you're ill, and we appreciate you being here for this issue, and I agree with what's been said by others. This circumstance is so, I hesitate to use the term bazaar, but in some ways, it is, it's so unusual, and, um, I think that it calls out for some kind of remedy that is fair to the people of North Carolina who were running for office. So, um, based on that, I, too, will be supporting this draft. >> SPEAKER: Do we have any further questions or comments? Do we have a motion? Commissioner Hunter. >> SPEAKER: I agree with everything that's been said. I move approval of agenda document 16-18-C. >> SPEAKER: Is there any further discussion on that motion? If none, all those in favor, indicate by saying I. Any opposed? Madam Secretary, that motion carries by a vote of six to zero. >> SPEAKER: Thank you very much. >> SPEAKER: Thank you. We'll next turn to item three on our agenda, which is the draft final rule for technical amendments to 2015-CFR. We have Eugene and Nevans from the Office of General Council. We've discussed this prior, but there have been a few developments, and any presentation that you'd like to present, please do so. >> SPEAKER: Thank you. Good morning. Agenda document number 1612-A and 1612-B contain proposed technical and conforming changes to the code of federal regulations. The Commission held these two items over from the April 14 open meeting. The only difference between the two agenda documents is the proposed technical changes to B-1 and B-2 and 109.10-C, both of which are found in agenda document 1612-A. Thank you, and I'll be happy to answer any questions. >> SPEAKER: Thank you very much. So, we discussed this last time. Commissioner Goodman set forth a motion and a proposal for, um, how to address the issue, and last time we discussed that, I don't know if we have some further words that we'd like to add on this particular matter. Commissioner Goodman. >> SPEAKER: Mr. Chairman, I had expressed two concerns with correcting what was an ambiguity in the current regulations. One was procedural, and more importantly was substantive, that if we were going to remove the ambiguity and make it clear for everyone, we do it with absolute clarity so there be no misunderstandings. Since that time, I've had further consultations with the Office of General Council, and we have arrived at language that I think, although more elaborate from a change in article B to A, leaves no doubt and clarifies this once and for all in our regulations. I'm satisfied with the Office of General Council's conclusion, that although there would be more verbiage change, it would be technical and conforming nonetheless. So, I'm going to relent on any concerns about the procedure, but I do have new language that tracks very closely the language that I read at the last meeting. However, there were a few wording changes as of yesterday. My understanding is the Office of General Council has reviewed those, believes that this does resolve the concern. Some of my colleagues, at least one of my colleagues on the Democratic side has reviewed it, is satisfied. I might also add, however, that, you know, we did receive a comment from a former Commissioner and Chairman of the Commission who works for one of the major compliance organizations, that was a comment submitted this week by former Commissioner and Chairman David Mason, who pleads guilty, I might add, in his comment to having some responsibility for the ambiguity, and I believe my, I believe that my proposed language will satisfy or resolve even the comments submitted by former Chairman Mason. Um, my understanding before the meeting today was that some Commissioners might want more time to review the language, and I don't know if we're prepared to go to a vote. I'm prepared to make a motion, unless someone needs more time. >> SPEAKER: Okay. Is there any discussion? Are we ready to go to a motion, or would there be desire for -- >> SPEAKER: Just to be clear, what I would do is I would move adoption of agenda document A with these changes to sub-part C and G, which address the relevant regulatory sections. >> SPEAKER: Any thoughts? Vice Chairman. >> SPEAKER: A couple of us talked about bringing this up at the next meeting, and it comes a little fast, and I want to see how it dub tails with everything. >> SPEAKER: Unless anyone else has further comments on this matter, we will hold this for consideration at the next open meeting, and then with respect to agenda item four, which is proposed statement of policy regarding the public disclosure of closed enforcement files, there's been a request to hold discussion of this matter until the next meeting as well. So, that concludes the substantive items, but I'd like to recognize, Commissioner Ravel? >> SPEAKER: Thank you. First, can I mention, I know I submitted a document late last evening, and that document was intended for discussion. I mean, it's certainly not any sort of hard and fast view about any of those particular items, I'm just of the view that rather than doing this incrementally, we should be looking at the issues of disclosure in a broader way, so there was no intention to, you know, sort of, I'm flexible, if people want to discuss these issues between now and then. Thank you. >> SPEAKER: On this matter, I think that there is, between the two documents, much that can be moved together. In fact, I saw language in Commissioner Ravel's document that I had previously proposed last year. I have altered it in this one to resolve concerns that had been expressed to me by other Commissioners, but I think we can move several of those categories of documents together. I do believe we should take them up cereiatem, but we can discuss them as a whole. So, I do see movement, and I believe that somewhere between the two documents, now, Commissioner Ravel's document goes beyond mine. Mine discusses only specific enforcement records, and Commissioner Ravel's document covers a lot of other administrative records in the building, and, so, that's another reason to take these up separately, with each category of documents, but I see, I checked most of the documents categories on Commissioner Ravel's proposal last night, we discussed them last year, so to the extent there's any disagreement, I think it's going to be small. I just think there's promise, and we can take more time. (Off mic.) >> SPEAKER: I would like to, before we conclude today, also, going back to the issue of the technical/conforming, just suggest that if other Commissioners become comfortable with my motion, we might just take care of this on tally before the next meeting. >> SPEAKER: I'll keep that in mind. That concludes the substantive items on our agenda, but I would like to recognize that Commissioner Ravel would like to make some comments. >> SPEAKER: Thank you. Many of you know, I feel like I'm doing this routinely, but Alice Steinly, who has been in my office for only a couple months, however, she has been at the FEC since she started as an intern in 2006, and Allison has received another really great position as council to Commissioner, so she is going to be leaving, next week is her last week, but I want to tell you a little bit about Allison, despite the fact that she's departing so soon. She started in the former, what was called then the general law and advice division in 2007, and then, as we know, she has been in enforcement, with a few stints in Commissioner Weintraub's office, and then in my office, and Allison is a really unique lawyer. She's incredibly smart, talented, thoughtful and careful as a lawyer and knows a lot about the FEC. It's going to be a true loss. She is an accomplished horse woman, and as we were discussing, she has an adorable little dog, that I told her today is bring your child to work day, and you could have brought the dog, sit on my lap, but, no, anyway, I'm going to miss Allison. Her skill and her talent has been really, really helpful to me in the last couple months, and I'm probably just going to keep calling her. That's all there is to it. Thank you. >> SPEAKER: If I may just echo Commissioner Ravel, since Allison was a member of the Office of General Council for many years, we, too, are very sad to see a dear colleague depart. She's a wonderful person. She took more than her fair share of gruff from me, always graceful about it, and was a terrific lawyer and asset to the Commission entirely and specifically to the Office of General Council. Very happy for her though, and we wish her the best. >> SPEAKER: Certainly. Thank you for all the service you've performed here at the Commission, and we wish you all the best in your next position. Commissioner Weintraub. >> SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, I, also, of course, want to say nice things about Allison, who is one of many attorneys in OGC that really has performed a lot of different functions, and, really, we're so fortunate to have such a great job of versatile lawyers, versatile and talented lawyers downstairs. She has spent, she's actually spent more time in my office than she spent in Commissioner Ravel's, and always was a real asset to us as well. I also want to bid farewell to a really terrific intern, Shawn Rigby. He has been in my office for most of this academic year, he's about to graduate from Georgetown, going off to graduate, take the BAR exam, hopefully get a little bit of rest, and then launch what will undoubtedly be a terrific legal career at Jones Day. Shawn has really been a terrific asset to our office. He's smart, he's careful, he's, um, hard-working, and best of all, is truly a delight to have around. He's really a great guy, so we wish you well, Shawn. >> SPEAKER: Are there any other matters to discuss? I'll turn to Mr. Palmer. Are there any management or administrative matters that need to be discussed? >> SPEAKER: There are no such matters. >> SPEAKER: All right. Hearing none, meeting is adjourned.