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FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

1050 FIRST STREET, N.E.

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20463

BEFORE THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

In the Matter of ) 

 ) MUR 8056

Bob Healey for Congress, et al. ) 

) 

STATEMENT OF REASONS OF

COMMISSIONERS ALLEN J. DICKERSON AND JAMES E. “TREY” TRAINOR, III

INTRODUCTION

 This Matter concerns allegations that Robert Healey, Jr., his Congressional 

campaign committee, and the Viking Yacht Company violated the Federal Election 

Campaign Act of 1971 (“FECA” or “Act”), as amended, by making and accepting inkind corporate contributions “in the form of corporate logo and facilities use,” and 

that Mr. Healey and Viking conspired together to violate the Act’s “soft money” 

prohibitions.1 On the recommendation of our Office of General Counsel (“OGC”), four 

of our colleagues voted to invoke our prosecutorial discretion regarding those claims.2

We disagreed. Respondents’ actions were lawful, and we accordingly voted that 

there was no reason to believe (“no-RTB”) they had violated FECA. We provide this 

Statement to explain our disagreement with our colleagues.3

I. Standard of Review

FECA provides that the Commission may “vote to dismiss” a complaint, or find, 

“by an affirmative vote of 4 of its members, that it has reason to believe a person has 

1 First Gen’l Counsel’s Report (“FGCR”) at 13-14, MUR 8056 (Bob Healey for Congress, et al.), May 16, 

2023.

2 Certification at 1-2, MUR 8056 (Bob Healey for Congress, et al.), July 11, 2023; Heckler v. Chaney, 

470 U.S. 821 (1985).

3 We voted with our colleagues, and in accord with OGC’s recommendation, to find no-RTB concerning

internet posts produced by the Viking Yacht Company. Certification at 1, MUR 8056 (Bob Healey for 

Congress, et al.), July 11, 2023. 

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committed, or is about to commit, a violation.”4 The Commission has added additional 

voting options: (1) “[f]ind ‘reason to believe’...(2) dismiss the matter, (3) dismiss the 

matter with admonishment; or (4) find ‘no reason to believe’ a respondent has violated 

the Act.”5 And under current practice, our dismissal votes may also explicitly invoke

the agency’s “prosecutorial discretion” where a matter does “not merit the additional 

expenditure of Commission resources.”6 

Because none of these fine distinctions are present in the Act, commissioners 

and the public have had to grapple with their differences, if any. Our view is that, 

under current practice, the Commission should find no-RTB where a complaint fails 

to meet the RTB standard, whether because its allegations fail as a matter of law or 

because they are unsupported by sufficient evidence. Conversely, where a complaint 

does meet the RTB standard, the Commission is obligated to engage in a “complicated 

balancing” of factors, including whether “agency resources are best spent on this 

violation or another, whether the agency is likely to succeed if it acts, whether the 

particular enforcement action requested best fits the agency’s overall policies, and, 

indeed, whether the agency has enough resources to undertake the action at all.”7 

Here, we did not believe the RTB standard was met as a matter of law. “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.’” 8 

II. There Was No Reason To Believe Respondents Arranged An In-Kind 

Corporate Contribution.

The relevant portion of this Matter concerned four seconds in a video ad 

produced by Healey for Congress.9 This “digital advertisement...contains scenes from 

4 52 U.S.C. § 30109(a)(1)-(2).

5 Fed. Election Comm’n, “Statement of Policy Regarding Comm’n Action in Matters at the Initial Stage 

in the Enforcement Process,” 72 Fed. Reg. 12545, 12545 (Mar. 16, 2007) (“Initial Stage Policy”).

6 Id. at 12546.

7 Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 831 (1985). 

8 Statement of Reasons of Vice Chair Dickerson and Comm’r Cooksey and Trainor at 4, MURs 

7859/7860 (Citizens for Working Am./Jobs and Progress Fund), Dec. 17, 2021 (quoting Statement of 

Reasons of Vice Chair Dickerson and Comm’r Trainor at 3, MUR 6992 (Donald J. Trump, et al.), Aug. 

31, 2021)) (brackets and ellipses in original). 

9 FGCR at 4-6.

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inside a manufacturing facility in which Healey is seen wearing a polo shirt with the 

Viking logo visible on its front.”10 The complaint “posit[ed] that the manufacturing 

facility in the advertisement” was “a Viking facility.” 11 

The theory of legal liability was simple. Wearing a polo shirt with a corporate 

logo, and filming in a corporate facility, involved an unlawful in-kind corporate 

contribution. And FECA prohibits “any corporation whatever” from “mak[ing] a 

contribution” in any federal election.12 This ban encompasses so-called in-kind 

contributions, such as “the provisions of any goods or services without charge or at a 

charge that is less than the usual and normal charge for such goods and services,” 

including “[s]ecurities, facilities, equipment, supplies, personnel, advertising 

services, membership lists, and mailing lists.” 13 

Here, the relevant allegations fail for independent reasons. 

First, there is no indication, beyond the complaint’s bare speculation, that 

facilities depicted in the advertisement belong to Viking.14 The fleeting backdrop is 

of a plain industrial space, indistinguishable from many thousands of others, without 

even an indication that it is used for the manufacture of watercraft. The mere 

suggestion that this location may belong to Viking plainly fails to meet the 

Commission’s longstanding understanding of the evidentiary standard at the RTB 

stage.15 

Turning to Mr. Healey’s polo shirt: the logo on his shirt is unquestionably that 

of the Viking Yacht Company, even if the average viewer would have to pause the 

10 Id. at 4.

11 Id. 

12 52 U.S.C. § 30118(a).

13 11 C.F.R. § 100.52(d)(1).

14 The Complaint simply states that Mr. Healey “appears to have used the company’s manufacturing 

facility for an advertisement.” Complaint at 7 (emphasis supplied).

15 See, e.g., Statement of Reasons of Comm’rs Mason, Sandstrom, Smith, and Thomas at 2, MUR 4960 

(Hillary Rodham Clinton for U.S. Senate Exploratory Comm.), Dec. 21, 2000 (“Unwarranted legal 

conclusions from asserted facts or mere speculation will not be accepted as true”) (internal citations 

omitted); cf. Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Gov’t PAC, 528 U.S. 377, 392 (2000) (“We have never accepted 

mere conjecture as adequate to carry a First Amendment burden”). 

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video and squint to be certain.16 But the mere appearance of a corporate logo is not a 

violation of the Act. Rather, FECA explains that a “contribution” is “any gift, 

subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money or anything of value made by any 

person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.”17 

As we have explained, the Supreme Court imposed a limiting construction on 

the Act’s terms.18 The phrase “anything of value,” in particular, must be read through 

“the limiting connotation created by the general understanding of what constitutes a 

political contribution. Funds provided to a candidate or political party or campaign 

committee either directly or indirectly through an intermediary constitute a 

contribution. In addition, dollars given to another person or organization that are 

earmarked for political purposes are contributions under the Act.”19

Against this backdrop, our regulations provide a list of “goods and services” 

that constitute “in-kind contributions.” 20 At the threshold, neither logos nor anything 

remotely analogous is listed in the regulation.21 Nor do we believe that the brief and 

barely-legible display of a corporate logo on a shirt conforms with the Supreme 

Court’s “general understanding” of a contribution22 or our understanding that

“‘things of value’ under the Act” are limited to goods and services “given in-kind that 

hold a specific monetary value and are available on the market.”23 Without additional 

evidence to the contrary, there was no reason to believe that Healey’s fleeting display 

of Viking’s logo had any value to his campaign whatsoever. 

16 FGCR at 10 (“Both Responses note, and [OGC’s] review of the digital advertisement confirms, that 

the Viking logo appears in the digital advertisement for approximately four seconds and that the 

Viking logo is not legible for the majority of those four seconds”). 

17 52 U.S.C. § 30101(8)(A)(i).

18 Statement of Reasons of Chairman Dickerson and Comm’rs Cooksey and Trainor at 5-7, MURs 

7645/7663/7705 (Donald J. Trump, et al.), Aug. 31, 2022; Statement of Reasons of Vice Chair Dickerson 

and Comm’rs Cooksey and Trainor at 10, MUR 7271 (Dem. Nat’l Comm.), June 10, 2021. 

19 Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 23, n.24 (1976) (per curiam).

20 11 C.F.R. § 100.52(d)(1).

21 Id. (listing “securities, facilities, equipment, supplies, personnel, advertising services, membership 

lists, and mailing lists” as illustrative examples). 

22 Buckley, 424 U.S. at 23, n.24.

23 Statement of Reasons of Chairman Dickerson and Comm’rs Cooksey and Trainor at 6, MURs 

7645/7663/7705 (Donald J. Trump, et al.), Aug. 31, 2022. 

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Furthermore, contributions are gifts, not bargained-for exchanges. And the 

Commission has found that the provision of a candidate’s “participation” and 

“likeness” in a nonprofit mailer serves as “adequate consideration” to offset 

allegations of an illegal in-kind contribution.24 The same logic applies here. Healey’s 

shirt is just as much an endorsement of Viking as it is Viking’s endorsement of him.

Even if Healey wore that particular polo shirt at Viking’s suggestion or instruction, 

there was (extremely slight) value on both sides of the transaction. 

Accordingly, we do not believe Healey’s use of the Viking’s corporate logo 

qualified as an in-kind contribution.

III. There Was No Reason To Believe These Facts Constituted A “Soft Money” 

Violation

Finally, the complaint alleged that these four seconds of footage violated the 

Act’s “soft money” ban.25 In campaign finance parlance, money raised pursuant to a 

source-and-amount limit (such as the $3,300 limit an individual may give, perelection, to a candidate committee) is “hard money.” Money raised and spent outside 

those limits is known as “soft money.” 

Under the Act, candidates are generally prevented from raising or spending 

soft money.26 To prevent circumvention of this bar, the Act also provides that an

“entity directly or indirectly established, financed, maintained, or controlled by or 

acting on behalf of 1 or more candidates...shall not...solicit, receive, direct, transfer, 

or spend funds in connection with an election for Federal office, including funds for 

any Federal election activity, unless the funds are subject to the limitations, 

prohibitions, and reporting requirements of this Act.” 27

The complaint alleged that because Mr. Healey served as the chairman of 

Viking, Viking was “controlled by” him, and therefore the alleged facilities use and 

logo display constituted the solicitation, receipt, direction, transfer, or spending of 

“funds in connection with an election to Federal office” which were not “subject to the 

limitations, prohibitions, and reporting requirements of this Act.”28 

24 Statement of Reasons of Chair Lindenbaum, Vice Chairman Cooksey, and Comm’rs Dickerson and 

Trainor at 4, MUR 7943 (Common Good Va.), July 27, 2023. 

25 52 U.S.C. § 30125(e)(1).

26 Id.

27 Id. 

28 Id.; cf. Comp. at 7.

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We disagree for two reasons. 

First, the soft money ban does not include the “anything of value” catch-all that 

applies to contributions. Rather, it is expressly limited to “funds,” a term the Act 

repeats throughout its discussion of soft money. The alleged use of company facilities 

and the fleeting appearance of a corporate logo are not “funds” within the ordinary 

understanding of that term, because they neither take the form of, nor consist of, 

money.29 That should have been the end of the analysis.30 Efforts to expand the scope 

of the soft money prohibition to reach intangible or in-kind goods and services founder

on the plain text of the statute. 

Second, even if the statutory and regulatory language were unclear, we would

decline to stretch the Act to reach simple corporate images like the logo here. While 

de minimis in this case, business owners routinely build their campaign messaging 

around their business backgrounds and corporate expertise. The Act does not require, 

and prudence does not support, imposing a draconian rule that would treat a business 

owner’s use of corporate branding as a prohibited in-kind contribution. We cannot 

identify a governmental interest sufficient to justify the clear chill that rule would 

impose on candidates’ ability to effectively communicate their preferred message with 

the public.

29 See United States v. Murgio, 209 F.Supp.3d 698, 707 (S.D.N.Y. 2016) (“The ordinary meaning of 

‘funds,’ according to Webster’s Dictionary, is ‘available pecuniary resources.’ ‘Pecuniary’ is defined as 

‘taking the form of or consisting of money.’ And ‘money’ in turn, is defined as ‘something generally 

accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment’”) (quoting Webster’s 

Third Int’l Dictionary at 921, 1458, 1663 (2002)).

30 Our regulations are not to the contrary, merely tracking the Act’s invocation of “funds,” and defining

“[f]ederal funds” to “mean funds that comply with the limitations, prohibitions, and reporting 

requirements of the Act” and “[n]on-federal funds” to “mean funds that are not subject to the 

limitations and prohibitions of the Act.” 11 C.F.R. §§ 300.2(g) and (k); 300.60, 300.61. 

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CONCLUSION

Accordingly, we determined that there was no reason to believe that the 

Respondents gave or received illegal in-kind corporate contributions or violated 

FECA’s soft money rules. 

_________________________________ _________________________

Allen J. Dickerson Date

Commissioner

_________________________________ _________________________

James E. “Trey” Trainor, III Date

Commissioner

August 17, 2023

August 17, 2023

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