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But the lawyers got paid.

On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 9:49 AM, Eric Schwerin <eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
> wrote:

>
>
> http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/clinton-bush-lawyers-square-off-in-fec-proxy-war-215711
>
> Clinton, Bush lawyers square off in FEC proxy war
>
> Candidates looking for guidance on how to avoid breaking the law by
> coordinating too closely with super PACs didn’t get any help on Tuesday
> from the Federal Election Commission, the agency charged with clearing up
> the finer points of election law.
>
> The commissioners were unable to agree on the trickiest questions raised
> by two Democratic super PACS on how closely super PACs can coordinate with
> potential candidates before they officially announced that they’re running
> for office. The commissioners deadlocked on five of the super PACs’
> questions, with the three Republican members of the notoriously
> dysfunctional commission unable to agree with the three Democrats.
>
> Story Continued Below
>
> The super PACs’ request for guidance also turned into something of a proxy
> war for the legal masterminds behind Hillary Clinton’s and Jeb Bush’s
> campaign. Marc Elias, the lead lawyer for the two super PACs, as well as a
> lawyer for Clinton’s campaign, in effect asked the FEC to condemn tactics
> used by Bush this cycle or give Democratic House and Senate candidates
> permission to do the same. Charlie Spies, who is Elias’ rough Republican
> counterpart, told POLITICO in an interview that if Bush and his super PAC
> had crossed a line, then so had Clinton with her family’s foundation.
>
> Super PACs — which are legally barred from working with candidates they
> support — have gone further than ever before in coordinating with potential
> candidates who say they haven’t yet made up their minds.
>
> Bush showed up at fundraisers hosted by Right to Rise, a super PAC now
> supporting him, for months before his June announcement that he would run
> for president. Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera seemed to emulate
> Bush’s strategy by putting off his announcement of a Senate run as he kept
> asking donors for super PAC contributions.
>
> Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC, the two flagship super PACs
> for Democratic congressional candidates, asked the FEC to clarify the rules
> in September. Elias and the super PACs’ other lawyers said in an emergency
> request for guidance they had “serious doubts about the permissibility of
> many of the activities” carried out by Republicans this , but indicated
> they’d embrace those tactics if the FEC gave them the go ahead.
>
> "Either he gets to be able to publicly point to an opinion that says Jeb
> Bush and other Republicans have been violating federal law, or he gets
> permission to do the same himself and retain the moral high ground," said
> Paul Ryan, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, which asked the FEC to
> say the activities Elias floated are illegal.
>
> The implication wasn't lost on Spies, who filed a comment saying the
> activities should be allowed and the proposed rationale for prohibiting
> them was so broad that it would apply not only to super PACs but also to
> charities, namely the Clinton Global Initiative.
>
> "Hillary Clinton's lawyers asked questions they thought were cleverly
> worded to force the commissioners to comment on activity similar to what
> some of the super PACs supporting Republican candidates are doing," Spies
> told POLITICO. "It would also taint everything that these nonprofit
> organization do."
>
> Elias rejected the suggestion that he was working on Clinton's behalf,
> pointing to Carlos Lopez-Cantera, a Republican senatorial candidate in
> Florida who he says followed the same path with a super PAC.
>
> "The fact that some of what we're asking about was first seen in
> Republican presidential circles doesn't allay the concern that we're not
> going to see the same activity in House and Senate elections," Elias said
> in an interview before yesterday's meeting. "Either the FEC will say that
> this conduct is not permissible, at which point presumably neither side
> will engage in it, or they will say that it is permissible, at which point
> both sides will engage in it. But what's not tolerable is to have one
> party's candidates and super PACs operating under one set of rules and the
> other side operating under a different set of rules."
>
> But the outcome on Tuesday was not so straightforward.
>
> The often-deadlocked commission only managed to agree on five of the dozen
> questions Elias raised. They were unable to reach a majority decision on
> whether a potential candidate could form a super PAC before announcing his
> or her campaign, or whether a potential candidate could share advance plans
> with a super PAC before jumping into the race. They also couldn’t agree on
> whether super PACs could film footage of potential candidates with an eye
> toward using it in ads.
>
> Four of the six commissioners did vote to let candidates attend
> fundraisers with as few as two donors. Steven Walther, one of the
> Democratic commissioners, joined with the Republicans to approve the
> measure after a contentious six-hour meeting in which Elias threatened to
> sue the FEC if it failed to vote on the matter.
>
> The vote on Tuesday would seem to allow candidates to speak at super PAC
> fundraisers even if only two or three people show up, as long as the event
> bears some of the hallmarks of a larger fundraising event, such as written
> invitations and prepared remarks by the candidate.
>
> But the FEC is still working out the exact language of the opinion, and
> it’s impact is unclear. The FEC aims to finalize the language by Friday.
>
> Senate Majority PAC declined to say immediately how it would proceed,
> saying it would wait for the FEC to issue its final opinion.
>
> "While we had hoped the FEC would answer all of our questions, we are
> pleased that the Commission provided answers to seven of the twelve we
> submitted,” Shripal Shah, a Senate Majority PAC spokesman, said in an email
> to POLITICO. “We believe today's decision will create a somewhat more level
> playing field moving forward, and we look forward to reviewing final
> written guidance later this week."
>
> Elias has asked the FEC for guidance like this 50 times, he said toward
> the end of the drawn-out meeting.
>
> Elias raised his voice with two of the Democratic commissioners, Walther
> and Ann Ravel, late in the afternoon after Walther suggested postponing a
> vote on two of his questions. “My clients have to move on with their
> fundraising,” he said. “We’re in the middle of the cycle.”
>
> While Senate Majority PAC wouldn’t comment on its plans going forward,
> Elias indicated during the hearing that the super PAC was prepared to move
> forward with the kind of fundraisers it had described in its question as
> soon as the FEC signed off on it.
>
> “We’ve proposed the specific facts that we’re going to engage in,” he said.
>
> Isaac Arnsdorf is a POLITICO reporter.
> Authors:
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>
>
> Eric D. Schwerin
> eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>


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Alexander Snyder Mackler
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