From: ‘Shawn Woodhead Werth

To: ‘Stephen A Gura
Subject: Fw: Take No Action on Proposed Enforcement Manual Changes
Date: 07/19/2013 11:19 AM

For your information.

Shawn

"Robert E. Rutkowski"
To <secretary@fec.gov>,
cc

07/19/2013 10:12 AM Subject Take No Action on Proposed Enforcement Manual
Changes

Ellen L. Weintraub, Chair
Federal Election Commission
999 E Street, NW
Washington, DC 20463
(800) 424-9530

secretary@fec.gov

re Take No Action on Proposed
Enforcement Manual Changes

Dear Secretary,

In a letter, http://www.democracy21.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/GROUP-
LETTER-FEC-COMMISIONERS-ENFORCEMENT-MANUAL-7-19-13.pdf, sent
today to the five FEC Commissioners, reform groups urged Commissioners to take no
action regarding the FEC Enforcement Manual until the two nominees who have been
appointed to serve on the Commission are confirmed and take office
According to published reports, the Senate Rules Committee will hold a
hearing on the two FEC nominees on July 24, 2013 and the nominees could
be confirmed by the Senate before the August recess begins.

| strongly urge you not to hold any Commission meeting on the Enforcement


Manual until the full complement of six Commissioners is sitting on the agency.
The two new Commissioners who will have to live with the results of any
changes in the Enforcement Manual are entitled to participate in any
deliberations on this matter. There is no urgency or need for immediate
consideration of changes to an Enforcement Manual that has served the FEC
well for many years in its current form.

Under the proposed changes, the FEC staff would be required to ignore
information that is publicly available to everyone outside the agency and that
could be relevant to reaching a conclusion to recommend that the Commission
proceed or not proceed with an investigation.

The absurd nature of this proposed change can be seen by the sources the
professional staff would be prohibited from consulting in determining
recommendations to the Commissioners. Thus the professional staff would be
prohibited from consulting the following resources that have long been listed in
the Enforcement Manual as permissible sources to consult:

e The use of Westlaw “to search for news articles and to find public

information about corporations and individuals;
e Dun & Bradstreet which provides “comprehensive information on

most U.S. businesses’;
e¢ Commercial search engines (presumably such as Google) that “can
generate a list of potential information sources relevant to the facts of a

matter,”

e YouTube “to locate video advertisements that might be at issue in a
complaint’;

e Candidate, Party or Political Committee Websites; and

e “News articles” which “may provide useful background information
or reports of recent developments in a matter.”

| strongly urge that you not take any action regarding the Enforcement Manual
until the two new nominees to the FEC take office and six Commissioners are

available to act on the matter. | also strongly urge that if the proposed changes
to the Enforcement Manual are considered you vote against these changes.

Thank you for the opportunity to bring these remarks to your attention.

Yours sincerely,
Robert E. Rutkowski

cc: House Minority Leadership