FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

Washington, DC 20463

MEMORANDUM

TO:

FROM:

DATE:

SUBJECT:

The Commission 

Office of the Commission Secretary 

September 25, 2023

AOR 2023-06 (Texas Majority PAC) Comment from CLC

Attached is AOR 2023-06 (Texas Majority PAC) Comment from 

Campaign Legal Center. 

Attachment 
 September 22, 2023 

Lisa J. Stevenson, Esq. 

Acting General Counsel 

Federal Election Commission 

1050 First St. NE 

Washington, DC 20463 

ao@fec.gov 

Re: Advisory Opinion Request 2023-06 (Texas Majority PAC) 

Dear Ms. Stevenson: 

Campaign Legal Center (“CLC”) respectfully submits this comment on advisory 

opinion request (“AOR”) 2023-06, submitted to the Federal Election Commission (the 

“Commission”) by Texas Majority PAC (“TMP”), a nonfederal committee.1 

TMP’s core question is whether it may coordinate with federal candidates on what it 

calls a “paid canvass” supporting those candidates’ campaigns.2 According to TMP, it 

will incur two categories of expenses in running the proposed paid canvass: (1) it will 

compensate individuals (via payments through a vendor) for learning to 

communicate with voters and for their time spent knocking on doors; and (2) it will 

pay for the design and production of literature that the individuals will distribute to 

voters.3 Some of this activity will include references to, or constitute express 

advocacy in support of, federal candidates that TMP has consulted with to obtain 

strategic non-public information about the candidates and their campaigns.4

TMP contends that it may coordinate with candidates on the paid canvass without 

making in-kind contributions to those candidates because the “paid canvass” does 

not satisfy the “coordinated communication” standard at 11 C.F.R. § 109.21, i.e., a 

paid canvass does not meet the definition of “public communication” and therefore is 

1 See AOR 2023-06 (TMP) (Aug. 22, 2023), https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/aos/2023-

06/202306R_1.pdf. 

2 See id. at 3. 

3 Id. at 2. 

4 Id. 
2

not subject to the coordinated communication regulation.5 But even if that claim had 

merit, Commission regulations include a separate test, at 11 C.F.R. § 109.20, for 

coordinated expenditures that are “not made for a coordinated communication.”6

Thus, to conclude that the proposed conduct is lawful, the Commission would need to 

find that none of the activities described in the request is a “coordinated 

communication” under Section 109.21 or a “coordinated expenditure” under Section 

109.20. 

Based on the information presented in TMP’s request, it appears that at least some 

of its proposed activities would at least meet the definition of a “coordinated 

expenditure” under Section 109.20. Indeed, as TMP acknowledges, it “plans to 

consult with federal candidates, party committees, and their agents on these paid 

canvassing programs,”7 indicating that the resulting expenditures are “coordinated” 

since they are plainly “made in cooperation, consultation, or concert with . . . a 

candidate, a candidate’s authorized committee, or a political party committee.”8

Respectfully submitted, 

 /s/ Saurav Ghosh 

Saurav Ghosh 

Campaign Legal Center 

1101 14th St. NW, Suite 400 

Washington, DC 20005 

5 See id. at 3–7. 

6 11 C.F.R. § 109.20(b). 

7 AOR 2023-06 at 3. 

8 11 C.F.R. § 109.20(a) (emphasis added).