The Federal Election Commission has approved advisory opinions to help guide political organizations that want to take advantage of looser campaign finance restrictions.
The opinions allow political organizations to accept unlimited contributions - including contributions from corporations and labor organizations - if the money is used for "independent expenditures" supporting or opposing federal candidates.
The opinions also tell political organizations that they can use the FEC's current registration and reporting forms to provide detailed disclosure on their financial activity.
The FEC wrote the advisory opinions after two groups - the conservative Club for Growth and Commonsense Ten - asked for guidance following January's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Citizens United v. FEC, as well as decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Emily's List v. FEC and Speech/Now.org v FEC.
The Club for Growth wants to set up a special political committee to make only independent expenditures. In one opinion, the FEC notes that in the Citizens United ruling, the high court held that "independent corporate political spending cannot be limited." As a result, the FEC concluded, the non-profit club can "establish and administer a political committee that makes only independent expenditures. Moreover, because the committee ... intends to make only independent expenditures, there is no basis to impose contribution limits on the committee."
Democratic FEC commissioner Steven Walther, in a separate draft advisory opinion, suggested that approving the club's request went beyond the scope of the courts' rulings.
In response to Commonsense Ten, the FEC noted that under Citizens United and other rulings, "corporations, labor organizations, and political committees may make unlimited expenditures from their own funds and may pool unlimited funds in an independent expenditure-only political committee."
"It necessarily follows that corporations, labor organizations, and political committees also may make unlimited contributions to organizations such as the (Commonsense Ten) committee that make only independent expenditures," the opinion reads. "Given the holdings in Citizens United and SpeechNow that ‘independent expenditures do not lead to or create the appearance of quid pro quo corruption,' ... the commission concludes that there is no basis to limit the amount of contributions to the committee from individuals, political committees, corporations and labor organizations."
It remains unclear if the FEC opinions will shed more light on large contributors to independent spending efforts. Some of the organizations now making large campaign expenditures have provided little or no information about their donors in the past.
Read the draft ruling for Club for Growth here.
Read the draft ruling for Commonsense Ten here.
