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524US1

Unit: $U72

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FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N v. AKINS

Opinion of the Court

persuade the FEC to treat AIPAC as a “political committee.”
Respondents ﬁled a complaint with the FEC, stating that
AIPAC had made more than $1,000 in qualifying “expendi-
tures” per year, and thereby became a “political committee.”
1 Record, Exh. B, p. 4. They added that AIPAC had vio-
lated the FEC provisions requiring “political committee[s]”
to register and to make public the information about mem-
bers, contributions, and expenditures to which we have just
Id., at 2, 9–17. Respondents also claimed that
referred.
AIPAC had violated § 441b of FECA, which prohibits corpo-
rate campaign “contribution[s]” and “expenditure[s].”
Id.,
at 2, 16–17. They asked the FEC to ﬁnd that AIPAC had
violated the Act, and, among other things, to order AIPAC
to make public the information that FECA demands of a “po-
litical committee.”

Id., at 33–34.

AIPAC asked the FEC to dismiss the complaint. AIPAC
described itself as an issue-oriented organization that seeks
to maintain friendship and promote goodwill between the
United States and Israel. App. 120; see also Brief for
AIPAC as Amicus Curiae (AIPAC Brief) 1, 3. AIPAC con-
ceded that it lobbies elected ofﬁcials and disseminates infor-
mation about candidates for public ofﬁce. App. 43, 120; see
also AIPAC Brief 6. But in responding to the § 441b charge,
AIPAC denied that it had made the kinds of “expenditures”
that matter for FECA purposes (i. e., the kinds of election-
related expenditures that corporations cannot make, and
which count as the kind of expenditures that, when they
exceed $1,000, qualify a group as a “political committee”).
To put the matter more speciﬁcally: AIPAC focused on cer-
tain “expenditures” that respondents had claimed were elec-
tion related, such as the costs of meetings with candidates,
the introduction of AIPAC members to candidates, and the
distribution of candidate position papers. AIPAC said that
its spending on such activities, even if election related, fell
within a relevant exception. They amounted, said AIPAC,