FEC Considers Three Advisory Opinions

FEC CONSIDERS THREE ADVISORY OPINIONS

WASHINGTON – At its open meeting today, the Federal Election Commission voted to approve two advisory opinions and instructed the Commission’s Office of General Counsel to draft a response to a third advisory opinion request.

In Advisory Opinion 2010-05 (Starchannel Communications, Inc.), the Commission concluded that Starchannel, a Delaware corporation, may sell airtime to Federal candidates to run advertisements on television stations owned by a Mexican broadcasting corporation.

In Advisory Opinion 2010-06 (Famos LLC), the Commission concluded that the proposed affinity program between Famos LLC and political committees would not violate the prohibition in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended (the Act), against corporate contributions. Corporations are permitted to offer affinity programs with political committees so long as the corporation and political committee enter into a commercially reasonable transaction in which the political committee pays the usual and normal charge for any services provided and the amounts contributed to the political committee via rebates or rewards are from funds of the corporation’s customer and not from those of the corporation.

In Advisory Opinion Request 2010-07, the Commission discussed two alternative draft responses and then instructed the Office of General Counsel to draft a revised response to reflect the areas of consensus that emerged during the Commission’s discussion. The requester, a California state ballot measure committee, asked whether and how Members of Congress may solicit donations to it (i) during the period before the measure qualifies for the November 2010 general election ballot, and (ii) during the post-qualification period leading up to the date of the general election.