Week of July 20-24, 2020

Commission meetings and hearings

No open meetings or executive sessions were scheduled this week.

Advisory Opinions

Request Received

Advisory Opinion Request 2020-05 (Committee to Elect Mark Charles for President)

On July 22, the Commission made public an advisory opinion request from the Committee to Elect Mark Charles for President. The requester, the authorized committee of an independent presidential candidate that does not participate in a primary, asks whether the committee is entitled to a separate contribution limit for a primary, and if so, how to determine the primary date. The requester also asks how to determine the primary date for purposes of the candidate’s eligibility for a salary. The Commission will accept comments on the request until August 3, 2020. The requester has granted an extension of time that allows the Commission to issue a response by the 20th day following the date that the Commission holds its first open meeting at which a quorum of at least four Commissioners is present.

Extension of Time

Advisory Opinion Request 2020-02 (Bertrand)

On July 20, the Commission received an extension of time for 30 days following the date that the Commission holds its first open meeting at which a quorum of at least four Commissioners is present. The requestor, a U.S. citizen residing in Canada, asks several questions regarding his proposal to make expenditures for certain online political advertisements.

Litigation

Campaign Legal Center v. FEC (Case No. 20-0588) On July 20, the Commission filed a Response to an Order to Show Cause in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and the court issued a Minute Order directing the Clerk of the Court to close the case.

Lieu, et al. v. FEC (Case No. 19-1398) On July 21, Former FEC Commissioner Ann M. Ravel, Christopher T. Robertson, Kelly Bergstrand and D. Alexander Winkelman, and a group of campaign finance law scholars filed Briefs of Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners in the U.S. Supreme Court. On July 22, a group of United States Senators, Washington and Other States and a group of political scientists, too, filed Briefs of Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners.

Outreach

On July 24, Chair James E. “Trey” Trainor participated in the National Association of Business Political Action Committees’ (NABPAC) weekly podcast, the Facts about PACs.

Upcoming educational programs

September 2, 2020: The Commission will host an Independent Expenditures and Pre-Election Communications webinar.

Additional information is available on the Educational Outreach page of the Commission website.

Upcoming reporting due dates

August 20: August Monthly reports are due. For more information on monthly reporting dates, refer to the 2020 Monthly Reporting page of the Commission website.

Updated election dates

For the latest reporting updates, please visit the Commission’s Dates and deadlines web page.

Status of agency operations

See the Commission’s statement on the status of agency operations, updated on June 18, 2020. At this stage, most agency staff remain in telework status and the Commission’s office remains closed to visitors.

Additional research materials

Contribution Limits. In addition to the current limits, the Commission has posted an archive of contribution limits that were in effect going back to the 1975-1976 election cycles.

Federal Elections 2018: Election Results for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives is available. The data was compiled from the official vote totals published by state election offices.

FEC Notify: Want to be notified by email when campaign finance reports are received by the agency? Sign up here.

Additional research materials about the agency, campaign finance information, and election results are available through the Library section of the Commission website.

The 2019 Combined Federal State Disclosure and Election Directory is available. This publication identifies the federal and state agencies responsible for the disclosure of campaign finances, lobbying, personal finances, public financing, candidates on the ballot, election results, spending on state initiatives and other financial filings.

The FEC Record is available as a continuously updated online news source.

Other election-related resources

Videos on protecting U.S. elections. The FBI’s Protected Voices initiative provides videos designed to help political campaigns protect themselves from foreign influence. The 2019 videos offer guidance on ransomware, business email compromise, supply chain, social media literacy, and foreign influence operations. Other videos, released in 2018, include cyber hygiene topics such as social engineering, patching, router hardening, and app and browser safety.

Join the FEC on Twitter and YouTube

Follow @FEC on Twitter to receive the latest information on agency updates, news releases, and weekly activity. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, FECTube: FECConnect on Demand, to watch instructional videos that have been designed to help candidates and committees comply with federal campaign finance laws. Note that the FEC is not currently available through other social media platforms at this time. The use of the agency’s logo, name, and likeness on other media has not been authorized by the FEC.