Posted October 4, 2006 by Paul S. Ryan

Compromise Rules the Day: FEC Adopts Opinion Advising 527 Group Unity 08 to Register as a Federal Political Committee

For the second time in a single meeting, Federal Election Commissioners crossed party lines to adopt an Advisory Opinion, after first deadlocking on a 3-3 party-line vote.  As noted in this earlier blog post, party-lines were first crossed during today’s meeting in order to render an Advisory Opinion 2006-24, dealing with recount funding.  The Commission then moved on to the next agenda item, an Advisory Opinion Request by the 527 organization Unity 08 (AOR 2006-20).

After an initial 3-3 party-line vote regarding draft Advisory Opinion 2006-20, which would have advised Unity 08 that it is required to register as a “political committee” as a result of both solicitation of “contributions” and making “expenditures,” the Commission’s three Democrats (Commissioners Lenhard, Walther and Weintraub), who supported the draft opinion, agreed to striking all references in the draft to Unity 08’s solicitation of contributions, in order to gain support for the draft from Republican Commissioners Toner and Mason.

In the spirit of compromise, the Commission promptly and commendably adopted by a vote of 5-1 (Commissioner von Spakovsky opposed) Advisory Opinion 2006-20, advising Unity 08 that “[m]onies spent by Unity 08 to obtain ballot access through petition drives will be expenditures” under federal campaign finance law, and that the organization must register as a “political committee” and abide by reporting requirements, and contribution amount limitations and source prohibitions, when its “expenditures” exceed $1,000.

Unity 08, a 527 organization with the stated purpose of nominating a ticket for President and Vice President in 2008, filed AOR 2006-20 in May, asking the Commission to declare that the organization is not a “political committee” and, consequently, that it is not required to comply with federal “political committee” restrictions.

The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 filed comments June 19 in response to the AOR, and a second set of comments August 23, in response to a Unity 08 supplement to its AOR.  And in two separate posts on this blog we explained: “Though there may be close calls regarding the question of whether a particular organization is a ‘political committee’ under federal campaign finance law, Unity 08 isn’t one of them.  As sure as the sun rises in the east, Unity 08 is a federal ‘political committee.’”

Consistent with the Legal Center’s and Democracy 21’s comments, Advisory Opinion 2006-20 adopted today correctly rejects Unity 08’s request that it be permitted to raise and spend funds to influence the 2008 presidential election without registering as a “political committee” and abiding by federal law campaign finance restrictions.