FEC approves advisory opinion, Notification of Availability on rulemaking

WASHINGTON – At its open meeting today, the Federal Election Commission approved an advisory opinion and a Notification of Availability concerning a rulemaking on the conduit reporting threshold.

Advisory Opinion Request 2022-21 (DSCC, Bennet for Colorado, and People for Patty Murray) The Commission discussed four draft advisory opinions in response to a request from the DSCC, Bennet for Colorado, and People for Patty Murray, and approved the fourth draft. The requestors asked whether DSCC may use its Legal Proceedings Account established under 52 U.S.C. § 30116(a)(9)(C) to pay for two types of television advertisements featuring federal candidates, including Senators Michael Bennet and Patty Murray, that solicit funds for the DSCC’s Legal Proceedings Account and whether the principal campaign committees for Senators Bennet and Murray may coordinate with the DSCC on those advertisements. The Commission concluded that the DSCC may pay for both types of solicitation, subject to reasonable cost allocation among the DSCC’s accounts, including the Legal Proceedings Account, and that the candidate committees may coordinate both types of ads with the DSCC, provided that those costs not reasonably allocable to the Legal Proceedings Account are either consistent with the limits on coordinated expenditures by a national political party committee under 52 U.S.C. § 30116(d)(3) or the DSCC treats those costs as in-kind contributions to the candidate with whom the advertisement is coordinated.

Notification of Availability for REG 2022-05 (Conduit Reporting Threshold) The Commission approved the Notification of Availability for REG 2022-05 (Conduit Reporting Threshold) in response to a Petition for Rulemaking from WinRed. The Commission seeks public comment within 60 days of publication of the Notification of Availability in the Federal Register on whether it should initiate a full rulemaking on amending its existing regulations regarding the threshold amount at which conduits forwarding contributions to political committees must identify the contributors to the recipient political committees and the Commission.