1 

FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

1050 FIRST STREET, N.E.

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20463

BEFORE THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

In the Matters of ) 

) MURs 7859/7860

Citizens for a Working America, et al. ) 

Jobs and Progress Fund, Inc., et al. ) 

) 

STATEMENT OF REASONS OF VICE CHAIR ALLEN DICKERSON

AND COMMISSIONERS SEAN J. COOKSEY AND JAMES E. “TREY” TRAINOR, III

The Commission’s “exclusive” jurisdiction over civil enforcement of the Federal 

Election Campaign Act of 1971 (“FECA” or the “Act”), as amended, is not indefinite.1

In creating this agency, Congress subjected our authority to a five-year statute of 

limitations.2 

It is undisputed that these Matters concerned alleged violations more than five 

years old. Nevertheless, our Office of General Counsel (“OGC”) contended that our 

1 52 U.S.C. § 30107(e) (“Except as provided in section 30109(a)(8) of this title, the power of the 

Commission to initiate civil actions under subsection (a)(6) shall be the exclusive civil remedy for the 

enforcement of the provisions of this Act”). Section 30109(a)(8) provides for complainants to seek relief

in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in cases where the Commission either 

fails to act on a complaint or dismisses it.

2 52 U.S.C. § 30145(a) (“No person shall be...punished for any violation of” the Act “unless...the 

information is instituted within 5 years after the date of the violation”); 28 U.S.C. § 2462 ( “Except as 

otherwise provided by Act of Congress, an action, suit or proceeding for the enforcement of any civil 

fine, penalty, or forfeiture, pecuniary or otherwise, shall not be entertained unless commenced within 

five years from the date when the claim first accrued if, within the same period, the offender or the 

property is found within the United States in order that proper service may be made thereon”). 

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jurisdiction was intact3 and certain of our colleagues agreed.4 Because we believe 

Congress spoke clearly, and that the expiration of the statute of limitations deprived 

us of authority to pursue these matters, we voted to dismiss the allegations.5

I. Background

The only relevant fact here is that the alleged “activity occurred more than five 

years ago.”6 While there are many powers that four votes of the Commission may 

invoke, it cannot turn back time.

Nevertheless, OGC argues that, the passage of more than five years 

notwithstanding, we retain authority over these Respondents. This is not the first 

time that the Commission has seen this argument, and we again reject it.7 

3 First Gen’l Counsel’s Report (“FGCR”) at 1, MUR 7859 (Citizens for a Working Am., et al.), Aug. 24, 

2021 (“EXPIRATION OF SOL: Oct. 1, 2016—Ongoing”); FGCR at 1, MUR 7860 (Jobs and Progress 

Fund), Aug. 27, 2021 (“SOL EXPIRATION: Oct. 1, 2018-Oct. 1, 2021”).

4 See Statement of Reasons of Comm’r Weintraub, MUR 7860 (Jobs and Progress Fund, et al.), Dec. 3, 

2021. 

5 Pursuant to the instructions of the federal judiciary, we provide this Statement to explain our 

reasoning. See Dem. Cong. Campaign Comm. v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 831 F.2d 1131, 1135 (D.C. Cir. 

1987) (“DCCC”) (establishing requirement that “[t]he Commission or the individual Commissioners” 

must provide a statement of reasons why the agency “rejected or failed to follow the General Counsel’s 

recommendation”); Common Cause v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 842 F.2d 436, 453 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (“A 

statement of reasons...is necessary to allow meaningful judicial review of the Commission’s decision 

not to proceed”); see also id. at 451 (R.B. Ginsburg, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part) (“I 

concur in part III of the court’s opinion holding the DCCC rule applicable, prospectively, to all 

Commission dismissal orders based on tie votes when the dismissal is contrary to the recommendation 

of the FEC General Counsel”); Nat’l Republican Senatorial Comm. v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 966 F.2d 

1471, 1476 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (“We further held that, to make judicial review a meaningful exercise, the 

three Commissioners who voted to dismiss must provide a statement of their reasons for so voting. 

Since those Commissioners constitute a controlling group for purposes of the decision, their rationale 

necessarily states the agency’s reasons for acting as it did”) (citation omitted); Campaign Legal Ctr. & 

Democracy 21 v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 952 F.3d 352, 355 (D.C. Cir. 2020).

6 FGCR at 2, MUR 7860 (Jobs and Progress Fund); FGCR at 3, MUR 7859 (Citizens for a Working 

Am., et al.) (Respondent “may have become a political committee in 2011”). 

7 Earlier this year, in MUR 7181 (Independent Women’s Voice), we rejected OGC’s similar contention

that the Commission possessed jurisdiction over alleged violations of the Act that took place in “the 

2010, 2012, and 2014 federal elections.” Statement of Reasons of Vice Chair Dickerson and Comm’rs 

Cooksey and Trainor at 2, MUR 7181 (Independent Women’s Voice), Mar. 18, 2021. 

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OGC’s case, like many would-be miracle cures, relies on a misleading sleight 

of hand. It contends that an order requiring the filing of reports with the Commission, 

unlike the imposition of a civil fine, falls outside the general statute of limitations

codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2462 because it is “equitable relief.”8 

Specifically, OGC argued that “[o]nce [a respondent] became a political 

committee” within the meaning of FECA, “it also [incurred]...an ongoing obligation 

to file disclosure reports with the Commission”9 and therefore “[t]he statute of 

limitations does not bar the Commission from finding reason to believe...and seeking 

injunctive relief, including compelling [the respondent] to register as a political 

committee and file reports for all of its receipts and disbursements since” it triggered 

that status.10 It is this reasoning that allows OGC to claim perpetual jurisdiction over 

alleged political committees.11

II. Legal Analysis

OGC’s analysis is mistaken. The theory that the statute of limitations prevents 

us from imposing fines but does not bar equitable relief has been rejected by the 

courts. Most damningly, in Federal Election Commission v. Williams – which was not 

cited by OGC in any of its papers – this very agency “argue[d]” to the U.S. Court of 

Appeals for the Ninth Circuit “that § 2462 does not apply to actions for injunctive 

relief.”12 This position was flatly rejected as “directly contrary” to Supreme Court case 

law, and we were told that where “the claim for injunctive relief is connected to the 

claim for legal relief, the statute of limitations applies to both.”13 So it is here. 

8 FGCR at 16, MUR 7860 (Jobs and Progress Fund, et al.).

9 FGCR at 12, MUR 7859 (Citizens for a Working Am., et al.) (emphasis supplied).

10 FGCR at 16, MUR 7860 (Jobs and Progress Fund, et al.). 

11 This would be a very unusual statute of limitations. As the Supreme Court recently noted, “[t]he 

purpose of statutes of limitations includes fixing a date after which the potential defendants in 

government enforcement actions may obtain ‘repose’...certain knowledge that their ‘exposure to the 

specified [g]overnment enforcement effort ends.’” Michael Columbo and Allison Davis, “Age Before 

Equity? Federal Regulatory Agency Disgorgement Actions and the Statute of Limitations,” 7 HARV.

BUS. LAW REV. ONLINE 32, 35 (Apr. 4, 2017) (quoting Gabelli v. Securities and Exch’g Comm., 568 U.S. 

442, 448 (2013)) (brackets in original, ellipses supplied).

12 Fed. Election Comm’n v. Williams, 104 F.3d 237, 240 (9th Cir. 1996)

13 Id. (emphasis supplied) (citing to Cope v. Anderson, 331 U.S. 461, 464 (1947) for its holding that 

“equity will withhold its relief in such a case where the applicable statute of limitations would bar the 

concurrent legal remedy”). 

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Nor does the Ninth Circuit stand alone. As our own attorneys have explained 

in a federal court filing, a number of “courts of appeal[] have held that the statute of 

limitations contained in 28 U.SC. § 2462 also applies to claims for equitable relief.”14

Undaunted, OGC notes that we once forced a respondent to file make-up 

paperwork after the passage of the statute of limitations,15 and that a federal district 

court, in a case to which the Commission was not a party and where the court was 

not discussing the effect of any statute of limitations, determined that a plaintiff had 

standing because “a court may order defendant to disclose activity post-dating the 

alleged conduct in the administrative complaint when fashioning an equitable 

remedy.”16 Neither argument is persuasive when measured against the clear 

language of the Act and the circuit authority just cited. 

CONCLUSION

This Commission’s authority is subject to the limited authority that Congress 

provided us, including our five-year statute of limitations. That statute has 

elapsed, and OGC’s argument that our jurisdiction continues due to the 

availability of equitable remedies is wrong. In such circumstances, “[t]o have 

invoked prosecutorial discretion...would have implicitly suggested, contrary to 

our statute, that the Commission could have proceeded but declined to do so.”17 

14 Def. Rep. Mem. in Supp. of Mot. for Summ. J. at 9-12, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Wash.

v. Fed. Election Comm’n, No. 15-2038 (D.D.C. Nov. 10, 2016) (citing Fed. Election Comm’n v. Williams,

104 F.3d 237 (9th Cir. 1996); Sierra Club v. Otter Tail Power Co., 615 F.3d 1008 (8th Cir. 2010) and

Fed. Election Comm’n v. Nat’l Right to Work Comm., Inc., 916 F. Supp. 10 (D.D.C. 1996)).

15 FGCR at 12, MUR 7859 (Citizens for a Working Am., et al.) FGCR at 16 (citing to the Commission’s 

action in MUR 6838R (Americans for Job Security)) FGCR at 16, MUR 7860 (Jobs and Progress Fund,

et al) (same).

16 FGCR at 16, n.66, MUR 7860 (cf. citing to Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. Am. Action 

Network, No. 18-945, 2019 WL 4750248 at *14 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2019).

17 Statement of Reasons of Vice Chair Dickerson and Comm’r Trainor at 3, MUR 6992 (Trump), Aug. 

31, 2021; see also Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 101 (1998) (“Hypothetical 

jurisdiction produces nothing more than a hypothetical judgment”). 

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Accordingly, we rejected OGC’s recommendation that we exercise discretion 

we did not have and voted to dismiss the allegations due to the expiration of the 

statute of limitations.

_________________________________ _________________________ 

Allen Dickerson Date

Vice Chair

_________________________________ _________________________ 

Sean J. Cooksey Date

Commissioner 

_________________________________ _________________________ 

James E. “Trey” Trainor, III Date

Commissioner 

December 17, 2021

December 17, 2021

December 17, 2021

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