MICHAEL B. TRISTER 

 (1941-2018) _____________________

GAIL E. ROSS

B. HOLLY SCHADLER 

LAURENCE E. GOLD 

ALLEN H. MATTISON 

DAVID M. WACHTEL

JESSICA ROBINSON

KAREN A. POST 

ELIZABETH A. GROSSMAN

PHILIP R. EAGER

Of Counsel 

JOSEPH W. STEINBERG

SARAH E. NASON 

JOHN O. SAWYKO

RENATA E. B. STRAUSE

LAW OFFICES

Trister, Ross, Schadler & Gold, PLLC

1666 CONNECTICUT AVENUE, N.W., FIFTH FLOOR 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009

PHONE: (202) 328-1666

FAX: (202) 204-5946

www.tristerross.com

April 3, 2023 

Danya C. Brown

Assistant Staff Director

Audit Division

Federal Election Commission

1050 First Street, NE 

Washington, DC 20463 

 Re: Draft Final Audit Report 

 CWA COPE PCC

Dear Ms. Brown: 

 We are writing in response to your March 1 letter and the Draft Final Audit Report of the Audit 

Division resulting from the audit of Communications Workers of America – COPE Political Contributions 

Committee (the “Committee”). 

 As the Draft Final Audit Report notes, the Committee complied with the recommendation 

conveyed in the Interim Audit Report to address Finding 1 by amending its 2022 June Monthly Report to 

correct the cash on hand balance and by amending subsequent reports to carry the corrected balance 

forward. In the time since the Draft Final Audit Report was prepared, the Committee has also undertaken 

compliance with the Audit Division staff’s recommendation to address Finding 2 by disclosing all of the 

occupation and name of employer information (“OCC/NOE Information”) it has obtained through “best 

efforts” on amended 2019-2020 reports. However, due to certain technological limitations of the 

Commission’s report filing system, these amendments have required considerable effort by Committee 

personnel. 

 In the Interim Audit Report, the Audit Division staff recommended that the Committee disclose the 

additional OCC/NOE Information for 2019-2020 contributions in one of three ways: (1) by filing a Form 

99 (Miscellaneous Electronic Submission) containing all of the pertinent information required on Schedule 

A for each contribution; (2) by filing an amended Schedule A (Itemized Receipts) on its next regularly 

scheduled disclosure report listing all of the contributions for which it received additional OCC/NOE 

Information; or (3) by amending all of its 2019-2020 reports. In response to the Interim Audit Report, the 

Committee informed the Audit Division of its intent to comply with the recommendation by filing one or 

more Forms 99. This approach initially appeared to be the most straightforward for the Committee 

because the additional OCC/NOE Information to be disclosed was stored in a spreadsheet that the 
2

Committee could have easily converted to a text file and transmitted to the Commission. However, the 

Committee discovered that the Commission’s filing system limits Forms 99 to only 20,000 characters, 

which would have resulted in the Committee’s needing to file thousands of separate Forms 99 in order to 

transmit the nearly 80,000 rows of data in the spreadsheet.

When the Committee discovered the near-insurmountable burden of disclosing the OCC/NOE 

Information using Form 99, the Committee contacted Mr. Carrell with the Audit Division staff and the 

Committee’s assigned Senior Campaign Finance Analyst, Michael Adamsky, to discuss alternatives. Both 

Mr. Carrell and Mr. Adamsky were generous with their time and attempted to help the Committee resolve 

how to disclose the OCC/NOE Information as efficiently as possible. The Committee truly appreciates 

their efforts to provide assistance. However, after conferring with the Committee’s filing software 

provider, it became clear that the Audit Division staff’s second recommendation for disclosing the 

OCC/NOE Information – filing an amended Schedule A on the next regularly scheduled report disclosing 

the 2019-2020 contributions with the additional information supplied – was not feasible either. We 

understand that such an option may be available to committees that file using FECfile, but the 

Committee’s software could not accommodate such a filing without custom data management work by its 

software provider at a considerable cost to CWA.

With the Form 99 and amended Schedule A options effectively unavailable, the Committee has 

been left with no choice but to amend all of its 2019-2020 reports to disclose the additional OCC/NOE 

Information – itself a time-consuming effort requiring significant resources of CWA personnel. They have 

already filed numerous amendments and expect to complete the rest by Wednesday, April 5, 2023.

While the Committee appreciates the need to comply with all of the steps required by 11 C.F.R. §

104.7(b) to demonstrate “best efforts,” the difficulty that the Committee has encountered in attempting to 

do so is not unique. For this reason, we urge the Commission to consider expanding and modernizing the 

options available to filers for disclosing additional OCC/NOE Information in compliance with 11 C.F.R. §

104.7(b)(4). When a committee has the required information available in a commonly-used format like a 

spreadsheet, there should be a simple mechanism by which the committee can file that information with 

the Commission and update the public record. The Commission need not even amend its regulations to 

make this change – for example, it could create an option for filing an amended memo Schedule A directly 

through its website, which a committee could use to submit only the information described in 11 C.F.R. §

104.7(b)(4)(i)(A) at the same time that it files a regularly-scheduled report using the committee’s ordinary 

filing software. Such an option would no doubt improve overall compliance with “best efforts” 

requirements by making that compliance considerably easier, just as it would have made the Committee’s 

compliance with the Audit Division staff’s recommendations much easier as well. We would appreciate 

your consideration of this suggestion and circulation of it to the appropriate officials at the Commission, 

and we would be glad to discuss it.

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours truly,

\ Laurence E. Gold

Renata E. B. Strause

Counsel to CWA COPE PCC

cc: Sara Steffens, Treasurer