Week of August 16-20, 2021

Commission meetings and hearings

No open meetings or executive sessions were scheduled this week.

Advisory Opinions

Request Received

Advisory Opinion Request 2021-09 (Certified Voter, LLC) On August 16, the Commission made public Advisory Opinion Request 2021-09. The requestor, Certified Voter, LLC, intends to sell services to political committees whereby it creates customized “sponsored” versions of the committees’ own political advertisements. As proposed in the request, a contributor would make a contribution directly to a political committee and would ask to be identified as the “sponsor” of an ad already created by the political committee. The requestor would then create a brief message to be appended to the ad, including the sponsor’s name and hometown. The requestor would create, store, and provide the sponsored ads to the client political committee; the political committee would decide where to run the advertisement. The requestor asks whether the provision of these services to political committees for a commercially reasonable fee is permissible under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended (the Act), and Commission regulations. The Commission will accept written comments on the request during the 10-day period following publication of the request (no later than August 26, 2021) and must issue a response no later than 60 days after the receipt of the complete request, that is, by October 15, 2021.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

The Commission made public two closed cases, as follows. For more information, see the case documents in the Enforcement Query System.

ADR 1000

COMPLAINANT: FEC-Initiated
RESPONDENT: International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Campaign Assistance Fund and William T. Creeden, in his official capacity as treasurer (the Committee)
SUBJECT: In the normal course of exercising its supervisory responsibilities, the Commission initiated proceedings to determine whether there was reason to believe that the Committee failed to disclose $159,492.93 in additional receipts on its original 2020 August Monthly Report.
DISPOSITION: The Committee agreed to pay a civil penalty of $5,140.

ADR 1003

COMPLAINANT: FEC-Initiated
RESPONDENT: American Freedom Fund and Bill Jones, in his official capacity as treasurer (the Committee)
SUBJECT: In the normal course of exercising its supervisory responsibilities, the Commission initiated proceedings to determine whether there was reason to believe that the Committee failed to file a 48-Hour Report totaling $50,000 to support one independent expenditure disclosed on its 2020 12-Day Pre-General Report.
DISPOSITION: The Committee agreed to 1) retain an outside consultant to review its compliance procedures and conduct an on-site training with those responsible for preparing and filing its reports, and 2) pay a civil penalty of $2,500.

Administrative Fines

The Commission made public four closed cases, as follows. For more information, see the case documents in the Administrative Fine search system.

AF 3850 JFK Organizers and Andy Tarradath, in his official capacity as treasurer. The Commission made a final determination and assessed a civil penalty of $696.

AF 3851 Tomas for Congress and John Campos, in his official capacity as treasurer. The Commission made a final determination and assessed a civil penalty of $1,252.

AF 3917 Bill Engelbrecht for Congress and Charles William (Bill) Engelbrecht, in their official capacity as treasurer. The Commission made a final determination and assessed a civil penalty of $1,947.

AF 3918 Reba for Congress and Bryon Fredrick McComb, in their official capacity as treasurer. The Commission made a final determination and assessed a civil penalty of $14,791.

Litigation

Campaign Legal Center, et al. v. FEC (Case No. 21-5081) On August 18, Intervenor-Appellees filed a Principal and Response Brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

FEC v. Defend Louisiana PAC, et al. (Case No. 21-346) On August 13, the Clerk of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana entered Default against the Defendants.

Outreach

On August 17 and 18, the Commission hosted a virtual conference online via Zoom. During the conference, Chair Shana M. Broussard and Commissioner James E. “Trey” Trainor III participated in two panels on Recent Developments in Campaign Finance Law.

Upcoming Commission meetings

August 31, 2021: The Commission is scheduled to meet in executive session.

September 2, 2021: The Commission is scheduled to hold an open meeting.

Upcoming reporting due dates

August 20: August Monthly Reports are due. For more information, see the 2021 Monthly Reporting schedule.

Status of agency operations

See the Commission’s statement on the status of agency operations, updated on April 15, 2021. At this stage, most agency staff remain in telework status and the Commission’s office remains closed to visitors. See also the agency’s Workplace Safety Plan, dated May 6, 2021.

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.

2020 Presidential General Election Results and Federal Elections 2018: Election Results for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are 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 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 currently. The use of the agency’s logo, name, and likeness on other media has not been authorized by the FEC.