FEC retires legacy Searchable Advisory Opinion System (SAOS)

WASHINGTON—The Federal Election Commission has retired the Searchable Advisory Opinion System (SAOS), a legacy search tool on the FEC website designed to search Commission advisory opinions (AOs) and related documents. Researchers and members of the public may continue to search for AO documents by using the current Advisory Opinion Search feature on the FEC’s website.

Over the past year, the Commission has made significant enhancements to the legal search systems available on FEC.gov, including creating more robust keyword and Boolean search options and developing a proximity search filter that searches for two terms or phrases that appear within a set distance from one another. These new search options are currently available across most of the legal search systems available on FEC.gov, including the AO, Enforcement Matters Under Review, Alternative Dispute Resolution and Administrative Fine search systems.

Users of the current AO search system may search for final opinions and related documents by AO number, keyword, requestor name, document type, the date the opinion was issued, and more. These search options may be used in addition to or in combination with Boolean and proximity search options. The Commission recently debuted a Legal Research Guide to assist users in locating and using all of its online legal resources.

Today’s retirement of the legacy SAOS is part of the FEC’s long-term program to modernize IT systems and applications. Over the past decade, the Commission has undertaken significant efforts to update FEC.gov and to develop secure and cost-effective online tools that allow users convenient and comprehensive access to the FEC’s legal resources and campaign finance data. Transitioning from SAOS to AO Search represents another substantial step forward in this ongoing effort.