UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

INGA L. PARSONS,

3 Bessom Street, No. 234

Marblehead MA 09145,

and

STEPHEN C. LECKAR,

6516 Lakeview Drive, 

Falls Church, Virginia 22041,

Plaintiffs,

v.

FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION,

999 E Street, N.W. 

Washington D.C. 20463,

Defendant.

COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

 1. This is an action challenging 2 U.S.C. § 441c (“section 441c”) to the 

extent that it bars individuals who have government contracts from making any 

contribution to any candidate, political committee, or political party in connection with an 

election for federal office, as a violation of the Equal Protection component of the Fifth 

Amendment and of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

2. Section 441c(a) applies to any person who has a contract with the United 

States or any agency or department thereof, including a contract for personal services, 

that is paid from congressionally appropriated funds. All such persons are prohibited 

from making any contribution “to any political party, committee, or candidate for public 

office or to any person for any political purpose or use.” Read literally, these 

prohibitions might apply to contributions to state, local, and federal elections, but the 

defendant Federal Election Commission (“FEC”), the federal agency responsible for 

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enforcing section 441c, has construed it to apply only to federal elections. 11 C.F.R. § 

115.2(a). A violation of section 441c is a felony and, depending on the amount of the 

unlawful contribution, can result in the imposition of a sentence of up to five years in 

prison, or a fine of $ 5000, or both. 2 U.S.C. § 437g(d)(1)(A).

JURISDICTION

3. Congress enacted the predecessor of 2 U.S.C. § 441c in 1940, and it was 

codified (with minor modifications) as 2 U.S.C. § 611 of the Federal Election Campaign 

Act of 1972 (“FECA”). It was subsequently amended in 1974 by the addition of 

subsections (b) and (c), at which time the three subsections were re-designated as section 

441c.

4. Because this is a constitutional challenge to section 441c, a provision of 

FECA, this Court has jurisdiction over the case under 2 U.S.C. § 437h, but only to certify

necessary findings of fact and the constitutional issues in the case to the United States 

Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to be heard by that Court en banc.

PLAINTIFFS

5. Plaintiff Inga L. Parsons is lawyer with a specialty in Federal Criminal 

Law. She is a panel attorney under the Criminal Justice Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3006A 

(“CJA”), for the federal trial and habeas panels in the District of Massachusetts and the 

appellate panel for the First Circuit Court of Appeals. She was appointed to those panels 

by the judges of the District Court and Court of Appeals, respectively. As a panel 

attorney, she currently has, and will continue to have, contracts with the United States 

Government, for which she is paid by funds appropriated by Congress, for the services 

that she renders as a CJA attorney. She is a registered voter in Massachusetts and is 

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eligible to vote for President in 2016. She has contributed to state and local candidates 

including candidates for governor in Massachusetts and for a D.C. Council position in 

Washington DC, and she wishes to contribute to federal candidate campaigns in the 2016

election. She would make such contributions, except that, as a federal contractor, she is 

prohibited from making contributions in connection with federal elections, and she is 

unwilling to make any such contribution absent a court order authorizing her to do so. 

6. Plaintiff Stephen C. Leckar is a resident of Virginia and is eligible to vote 

for President in 2016. He is licensed to practice in the District of Columbia, Illinois, 

Georgia, four federal district courts, the Court of Federal Claims, two federal circuit

courts of appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. He is a CJA panel attorney for 

the federal appellate panel in the District of Columbia, on which he has served for twenty 

years, during which time he has handled one or two CJA cases per year. He is also on the 

CJA panel for the Fourth Circuit and currently has one case there. His appointments to 

his CJA panels are made by the judges of the court for which the panel provides CJA 

attorneys. As a CJA panel attorney, he is a contractor with the United States 

Government, and is paid for his services from funds appropriated by Congress. 

7. Plaintiff Leckar has made financial contributions to federal candidates and 

political committees in recent years, and he wishes to continue to make contributions to

federal candidates and committees, including candidates in the 2016 presidential and 

congressional elections. Until recently, he was not aware that section 441c prohibits all 

federal contractors from making any contributions to federal candidates or committees.

If that statute were constitutional, it would prevent him from assisting candidates in the 

same way, and subject to the same limits, as other American citizens. He wishes to 

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continue to make financial contributions to federal candidates and committees without 

taking an action that section 441c purports to prohibit. He would do so in connection 

with the 2016 election but for section 441c.

FACTS

8. The ban in section 441c(a) on contributions by individuals who have 

contracts with the government does not apply to other persons similarly situated, as set 

forth below in paragraphs 9-11.

9. Officers and employees of the federal government are generally permitted 

to make contributions in connection with elections for federal offices unless “the person 

receiving such contribution is the employer or employing authority of the person making 

the contribution.” 18 U.S.C. § 603. Those officers and employees include attorneys who 

prosecute cases for the United States and who are litigation adversaries of plaintiffs 

Parsons and Leckar, as well as attorneys at Federal Defender offices who, like plaintiffs 

Parsons and Leckar, defend indigent criminal defendants in the federal courts.

10. Section 441c(a) applies to corporations as well as to individuals who have 

government contracts. However, with limited exceptions not applicable here, subsection 

(b) allows “the establishment or administration of, or the solicitation of contributions to, 

any separate segregated fund by any corporation, labor organization, membership 

organization, cooperative, or corporation without capital stock for the purpose of 

influencing the nomination for election, or election, of any person to Federal office.” 

Thus, corporations, but not individuals, may establish and pay for the administration of 

separately segregated funds, which are a subset of entities known as political committees

that are permitted to make contributions that individual contractors such as plaintiffs may 

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not make. Such corporate political funds must bear the name of the corporate contractor 

and may be managed by corporate officers, including those who may have negotiated a 

contract for their corporation with an agency of the United States and/or have 

responsibilities for providing the goods or services specified in such contract.

11. In 11 C.F.R. § 115.6, the FEC has interpreted section 441c not to apply to 

contributions by officers, employees, and/or stockholders of a corporation that has a 

government contract. As a result, the president of a corporation with a multibillion-dollar 

defense contract may make contributions in connection with federal elections that 

plaintiffs are barred from making by section 441c. Moreover, even the president and sole 

stockholder of a corporation that bears the name of the president and provides personal 

services to a federal agency similar to those provided by plaintiffs, is permitted to make 

contributions in connection with federal elections that plaintiffs are barred from making.

Furthermore, those contributions can be made using money that was earned by the 

corporation from a government contract and paid as salary and/or dividends to the 

corporate officer, employee, and/or stockholder making the contribution. By contrast, 

plaintiffs Parsons and Leckar cannot make contributions even from money that was 

obtained from non-federal sources.

12. Under the Constitution and laws of the United States, the only federal 

officers that are elected are the President and Vice President, Members of the House of 

Representatives, United States Senators, and Delegates or Resident Commissioners to the 

Congress. The contracts held by plaintiffs that subject them to section 441c were not 

negotiated or signed by, or are being implemented by, any person who is an elected 

federal officer.

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FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION – VIOLATION OF EQUAL PROTECTION

13. The Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal government from depriving 

any person of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. The Supreme Court 

of the United States has interpreted the Fifth Amendment to include the guarantee of 

Equal Protection explicitly contained in the Fourteenth Amendment.

14. Because plaintiffs are not treated equally with individuals and 

corporations who are similarly situated with respect to their right to make contributions in 

connection with federal elections, the ban on contributions in section 441c as applied to 

individuals such as plaintiffs violates the Equal Protection guarantee of the Fifth 

Amendment.

SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION – FIRST AMENDMENT VIOLATION

15. Because section 441c completely prohibits individuals with government 

contracts from making any contributions to candidates, political committees, and political 

parties in connection with elections for federal offices, it is unconstitutional under the 

First Amendment unless there is a compelling governmental interest in the ban and the 

ban is narrowly tailored to support that interest. Because individuals, like plaintiffs, who 

are government contractors are subject to the same limitations on contributions as are all 

other individuals, the government must show why the general limitations are not 

adequate to protect the government’s interest in limiting contributions. There is, however, 

no reason that supports the ban that is applicable only to individuals such as plaintiffs 

who have contracts with the federal government, but not to all other U.S. citizens.

16. Even if there were some justification for banning contributions by some 

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individuals with some government contracts, on the theory that individuals seeking 

government contracts should not be allowed to make contributions to government 

officials who have the authority to enter into such contracts with them, the total ban 

applicable to plaintiffs is not narrowly tailored because it bans contributions to candidates 

who have no connection with the CJA contracts that plaintiffs have with the federal

courts. As set forth in paragraph 12 above, the persons who are authorized to contract 

with plaintiffs were not candidates for election to federal office, nor were the persons 

who negotiated with plaintiffs, signed plaintiffs’ contracts, and/or are responsible for 

plaintiffs’ performance under their contracts elected federal officers at the time that such 

contracts were negotiated and signed and/or during the time that plaintiffs are performing

such contracts. Moreover, plaintiffs are also barred from making contributions to 

political committees and political parties, but those entities have no authority to contract 

on behalf of any department or agency of the United States, including the federal courts 

with which plaintiffs have contracts.

17. Because the ban on contributions in section 441c, as applied to plaintiffs and 

other individuals who have contracts with the federal government, is not supported by 

any legitimate interest, let alone a compelling one, and because the ban is not narrowly 

tailored to support whatever interest might support a ban, the ban violates the First 

Amendment rights of plaintiffs by forbidding them from making contributions in 

connection with federal elections and subjecting them to criminal punishment for 

violating this prohibition.

WHEREFORE, plaintiffs pray that this Court immediately certify the facts as to 

the claims in this complaint to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of 

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Columbia Circuit, and certify the constitutional issues to that Court for decision, as 

provided in 2 U.S.C. § 437h;

Plaintiffs further pray that the Court of Appeals:

A. Declare that 2 U.S.C. § 441c as applied to plaintiffs violates the Fifth and 

First Amendments to the Constitution;

B. Enjoin defendant Federal Election Commission from enforcing 2 U.S.C. 

§ 441c against plaintiffs; and 

C. Remand the case to the District Court to award plaintiffs their costs and 

attorneys fees for this action, together with such other and further relief to which they 

may be entitled.

Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Alan B. Morrison

____________________

Alan B. Morrison

D. C. Bar No. 073114

George Washington Law School

2000 H Street NW

Washington D.C. 20052

(202) 994 7120

abmorrison@law.gwu.edu

/s/ Arthur B. Spitzer

_________________________

Arthur B. Spitzer

D.C. Bar No. 235960

American Civil Liberties Union of 

 the Nation's Capital

4301 Connecticut Ave NW Suite 434

Washington, D.C. 20008

(202) 457 0800

artspitzer@aclu-nca.org

Dated: July 24, 2014

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