Opinion ID: 395170
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Proceedings Before the Federal Election Commission

Text: 11 On May 9 of this year the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in which it challenged the legality of the agency agreements entered by the NRSC and the various Republican State committees. 9 In its accompanying memorandum of law, 10 the DSCC argued that the challenged arrangements violate the plain meaning of Section 441a(d)(3), which provides separate spending limits for State and national party committees and makes no reference to agency. The DSCC claimed that a clear purpose of the statutory scheme was to create an incentive to the development of vigorous State party organizations. The DSCC did not challenge the agency agreement between the NRSC and the Republican National Committee, since the FEC at that time interpreted a Commission regulation, 11 C.F.R. § 110.7, to authorize such agreements. 11 Moreover, the DSCC itself has made an agency agreement with the Democratic National Committee. 12 The Commission dismissed the complaint. Although it gave no reasoned explanation of its decision, the FEC acted after receipt of a report from its General Counsel. 12 The First General Counsel's Report stated that this was the third time that a complaint of this kind had come before the Commission. Although it recommended the same result that the FEC had reached in the prior cases, 13 the report suggested that the General Counsel's emphasis shifted over the course of the various proceedings. 14 In the first proceeding the General Counsel had attributed importance to the absence of any express statutory prohibition of agency arrangements. In this case, however, the General Counsel placed greater reliance on an inference of congressional intent apparently drawn from a related section of the Federal Election Campaign Act, Section 441a(a)(4). That provision allows for unlimited transfers of money between and among political committees of the same party, as defined by the statute. 15 Assuming that the NRSC was a committee of the Republican Party within the meaning of Section 441a(a)(4), the General Counsel reasoned that, because the NRSC could lawfully transfer money to the State committees, which the State committees could then spend up to a limit of 2 cents per resident of voting age, the statute must have intended that the NRSC could itself make expenditures up to that limit while acting as the agent of the State committees. 16 The General Counsel also cited the more general argument that the provision permitting expenditures by the State and national party committees was intended to be broad broad enough to permit the pooling of large numbers of small contributions made to the political parties and their various committees. After receiving the General Counsel's report on July 8, the Commission rendered its judgment on July 10. 17 By a vote of 6-0 it found no reason to believe that the NRSC's agency agreements with the State committees violated Section 441a(d)(3). The FEC's summary announcement of the decision did not explicitly adopt the report of the General Counsel. 18