AO 2014-20: Nonconnected PAC may accept uncompensated services from foreign national volunteers

A nonconnected political action committee (PAC) may accept uncompensated volunteer services from foreign nationals, including developing website code and other intellectual property for the PAC’s use. Although foreign nationals are prohibited from making contributions to political committees, uncompensated volunteer activity is generally exempt from the definition of contribution. As a result, the PAC may accept the proposed foreign national volunteer assistance.

Background
Make Your Laws PAC, Inc. (MYL) is a nonconnected political committee registered with the Commission. Along with two other entities, it owns the rights to the trademarks, logos, and other intellectual property of MYL’s website and brand. Most of the website code is open source and open-source licensed, which means that the code is available online for anyone to examine. Users are permitted to reuse the code software provided that they give credit and publish any derivative works under the same terms.

MYL would like to accept volunteer services from foreign nationals under the same terms as it has previously accepted similar services from U.S. citizens. MYL stated that any out of pocket costs such as printing, distribution, web hosting, etc., will be paid for by MYL. Volunteers will not be compensated by anyone, but may use their own equipment (e.g., computers) in providing the services.

Analysis
The Federal Election Campaign Act (the Act) prohibits foreign nationals from making contributions, donations of money, or other things of value in connection with federal, state, or local elections in the United States. 52 U.S.C. § 30121(a)(1)(A) and 11 CFR 110.20(b). The Act also prohibits any person or committee from soliciting, accepting or receiving such contributions or donations from a foreign national. 52 U.S.C. § 30121(a)(2) and 11 CFR 110.20(g).

However, the Act and Commission regulations do provide that the term “contribution” does not include “the value of services provided without compensation by any individual who volunteers on behalf of a candidate or political committee.” 52 U.S.C. § 30101(8)(B)(i) and 11 CFR 100.74. The Commission has applied this “volunteer services exemption” to foreign nationals in the past. See, for example, Advisory Opinions (AOs) 2007-22 (Hurysz) and 2004-26 (Weller).

In MYL’s request, the Commission concluded that uncompensated foreign nationals may volunteer to help design MYL’s website code, logos, and trademarks without making a prohibited contribution to MYL.

In this opinion, the Commission expressly supersedes an earlier advisory opinion, AO 1981-51 (Metzenbaum), that prohibited a foreign national artist from donating uncompensated volunteer services to a campaign committee to create an original work of art to be used for committee fundraising. The Commission concluded that the foreign national prohibition and the volunteer services exemption were not construed in conjunction with one another in that advisory opinion.

Date Issued: March 19, 2015; Length: 3 pages

Resources:

• Advisory Opinion 2014-20 [PDF]
• Commission discussion of advisory opinion request 2014-20