Posted December 10, 2007 by Paul S. Ryan

CLC Files Comments in SpeechNow.org Advisory Opinion Proceeding

Today the Campaign Legal Center, together with Democracy 21, filed comments with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) regarding the advisory opinion request submitted by SpeechNow.org (2007-32).  SpeechNow.org—a group that plans on making independent expenditures supporting and opposing federal candidates, but not making any contributions to candidates—asks the Commission’s guidance as to whether it is required to register with the Commission as a political committee and abide by federal law contribution limits.

Although this advisory opinion request raises serious issues, it is not a serious advisory opinion request.  SpeechNow.org knows full well the answers to the questions it poses.  The Commission has recently and repeatedly made clear that 527 groups just like SpeechNow.org, which have a major purpose of influencing federal elections, which spend money for express advocacy expenditures and which solicit contributions to pay for such expenditures, are required by federal law to register as political committees and to abide by the political committee contribution limits.

What SpeechNow.org really seeks is a declaration that the political committee requirement and applicable contribution limits are unconstitutional.  But that is a determination the Commission should not and cannot make in the context of an advisory opinion proceeding.  Instead, the Commission should tell SpeechNow.org what it surely already knows—that its proposed activities will require it to register as a political committee; and that its status as a political committee will subject it (and its donors) to contribution limits.  Then the Commission should send SpeechNow.org off to the courthouse where it can engage in the constitutional adjudication that it appears to want.