Title: Federal Campaign Cybersecurity Assistance Act of 2019
Policy area: Government Operations and Politics

Summary:
Federal Campaign Cybersecurity Assistance Act of 2019
This bill permits the national committee of a political party to use building funds to provide cybersecurity assistance to the national committee, state political parties, candidates, or candidates' authorized committees. Currently, cybersecurity assistance is considered to be an in-kind contribution.
Further, the bill prohibits an authorized committee from selling any cybersecurity technology, products, or services that were purchased with building funds. However, such items may be donated to charitable organizations or government agencies at the end of a campaign.
The bill also specifies that cybersecurity technology, products, or services that are provided at less than fair-market value to a political committee or candidate are generally considered in-kind contributions.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1569 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1569

  To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to allow certain 
     expenditures for cybersecurity-related services or assistance.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              May 21, 2019

   Mr. Wyden introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
         referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to allow certain 
     expenditures for cybersecurity-related services or assistance.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Federal Campaign Cybersecurity 
Assistance Act of 2019''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) The intelligence community has confirmed that the 
        Russian government meddled in our elections.
            (2) Candidates for Federal office from both major political 
        parties have been targeted by sophisticated cyber-attacks.
            (3) There is a compelling governmental interest in 
        preventing foreign influence over the United States political 
        process, and that this includes protecting the political 
        process, the parties, and individual campaigns from cyber-
        attacks.

SEC. 3. ALLOWING CERTAIN EXPENDITURES FOR CYBERSECURITY-RELATED 
              SERVICES OR ASSISTANCE.

    (a) Use of Building Funds.--
            (1) In general.--Subsection (a)(9)(B) of section 315 of the 
        Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (52 U.S.C. 30116) is 
        amended--
                    (A) by inserting ``(i)'' after ``(B)'';
                    (B) in clause (i), as added by subparagraph (A), by 
                adding at the end the following new sentence: 
                ``Notwithstanding the preceding sentence, such account 
                may also be used to defray the expenses incurred for 
                secure information communications technology or 
                cybersecurity products or services for the national 
                committee, a State party, or for a candidate or his or 
                her authorized committee, regardless of whether the 
                expense otherwise relates to the construction, 
                purchase, renovation, operation, and furnishing of one 
                or more headquarters buildings of the party.''; and
                    (C) by adding at the end the following new clauses:
                    ``(ii) For purposes of this subparagraph, the term 
                `secure information communications technology' means a 
                commercial-off-the-shelf computing device which has 
                been configured to restrict unauthorized access and 
                uses publicly-available baseline configurations.
                    ``(iii) For purposes of this subparagraph, the term 
                `cybersecurity product or service' means a product or 
                service which helps an organization to achieve the set 
                of standards, guidelines, best practices, 
                methodologies, procedures, and processes to cost-
                effectively identify, detect, protect, respond to, and 
                recover from cyber risks as developed by the National 
                Institute of Standards and Technology pursuant to 
                subsections (c)(15) and (e) of section 272 of title 15, 
                United States Code.
                    ``(iv) An authorized committee may not sell any 
                secure information communications technology or 
                cybersecurity products or services received by the 
                authorized committee that were purchased using such 
                account funds. Nothing in the preceding sentence shall 
                prevent an authorized committee from donating such 
                secure information communications technology or 
                cybersecurity products or services to a charitable 
                organization or to a Federal, State, local, or Tribal 
                government agency at the conclusion of the campaign.''.
            (2) Reporting.--Section 304(b) of such Act (52 U.S.C. 
        30104(b)) is amended by striking ``and'' at the end of 
        paragraph (7), by striking the period at the end of paragraph 
        (8) and inserting ``; and'', and by adding at the end the 
        following new paragraph:
            ``(9) for the national committee of a political party, the 
        name and address of each authorized committee to which secure 
        information communications technology or cybersecurity products 
        or services is supplied from an account described in section 
        315(a)(9)(B).''.
            (3) Effective date.--The amendments made by this subsection 
        shall apply to expenditures made on or after the date of 
        enactment of this Act.
    (b) Treatment of Cybersecurity-Related Services as In-Kind 
Contribution.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, effective 2 
years after the date of enactment of this Act, any secure information 
communications technology or cybersecurity products or services (as 
those terms are defined in subsection (a)(9)(B) of section 315 of the 
Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (52 U.S.C. 30116), as added by 
subsection (a), that are provided at less than fair-market value to a 
political committee or a candidate for Federal office (as those terms 
are defined in section 301 of such Act (52 U.S.C. 30101)) other than in 
accordance with such subsection (a)(9)(B), shall be considered an in-
kind contribution, regardless of whether such services are made 
available on the same terms and conditions to all political committees 
or candidates, unless such services are made available on the same 
terms and conditions to all persons in the general public.
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