Court Opinion

ID: 9477374
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:21:58.544386+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:50.943163
License: Public Domain

RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part:
I concur in part III. of the court’s opinion holding the DCCC rule applicable, prospectively, to all Commission dismissal orders based on tie votes when the dismissal is contrary to the recommendation of the FEC General Counsel. In accord with the district court, however, I conclude that the Commission’s interpretation of 2 U.S.C. § 432(e)(4)1 defies common sense and fosters the very confusion Congress sought to prevent when it decreed:
[A] political committee which is not an authorized committee shall not include the name of any candidate in its name.
Mindful of the overriding and unambiguous legislative purpose “to avoid confusion,” the district court held that, sensibly read, “name” for § 432(e)(4) purposes must mean whatever name a committee presents to the public for identification, and not simply the committee’s formal, registered name. I agree.
The FEC reasons, however, that a name is a name is a name. For Commission registration purposes, a political committee must state its “name,” 2 U.S.C. § 433(b)(1), and if the committee has paid for a published statement or solicitation, it must clearly reveal its “name” and further “state that the communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.” 2 U.S.C. § 441d(a)(3). Because “name” indisputably means “registered name” in these two contexts, the FEC urges, “name” can mean no more in the § 432(e)(4) context. So long as the candidate’s name, which the unauthorized committee may not include in its name, is ascribed to a nonentity called a “project,” the unauthorized committee may give the candidate’s name top billing on its letterheads, response cards, and reply envelopes.2
The practical effect of the Commission’s interpretation is inescapably evident and abundantly documented in the record. A few examples follow. The political committee Americans for Change (AFC) created “Reagan for President in ’80,” urged potential contributors to send checks made out to “Reagan for President ’80,” and en*452closed postage paid reply envelopes addressed to that name. Fund for a Conservative Majority (FCM) created “Citizens for Reagan in ’80,” and similarly titled its reply envelopes. National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) solicited checks to the order of “Ronald Reagan Victory Fund.” AFC sent out “Reagan-grams” and Mailgrams from “American’s [sic] for Reagan.” FCM used the headings “Reagan in ’80 Gram,” and “Reagan Reply Gram.” NCPAC labeled envelopes “Reagan-Gram ’80.” AFC invited individuals to become members of state steering committees of “Reagan for President in ’80”; AFC’s headquarters, the press reported, answered the phone, “Americans for Reagan.” 3
Even the politically astute missed the “project”/“committee” distinction. Former Senator Robert Griffin of Michigan, for example, initially agreed to join AFC not realizing it was “an ‘independent’ fund-raising committee,” and believing it to be part of the Reagan campaign. Letter dated June 19, 1980 from Robert P. Griffin to Hon. Harrison Schmitt, reproduced in Joint Appendix at 192.4
Despite the inevitable result of allowing independent committees to use a candidate’s name as a name in its campaign letterheads, fundraising literature, contributor response cards, and business reply envelopes, the FEC donned blinders when it construed § 432(e)(4). The Commission’s constricted reading reflects no technical expertise I can discern. Instead, the name is a name is a name approach5 reveals a common failing of the legal mind: “The tendency to assume that a word which appears in two or more legal rules, and so in connection with more than one purpose, has and should have precisely the same scope in all of them, runs all through legal discussions. It has all the tenacity of original sin and must constantly be guarded against.” Cook, “Substance” and “Procedure” in the Conflict of Laws, 42 Yale L.J. 333, 337 (1933).6
Congress enacted § 432(e)(4) to avoid public confusion and to increase public awareness of the sources of campaign messages. In the interpretation it has given to Congress’ proscription, the Commission has diminished the legislature’s instruction. Sensibly and purposively construed, the § 432(e)(4) prohibition covers not only the formal, registered name of a political committee, but also the name the committee actually uses to identify itself in communications with the public purporting to solicit contributions for, or on behalf of, a candi*453date.7 I would so hold and therefore would affirm the judgment of the district court on this issue.

. The Commission divided on the issue 4-2.

. Because the FEC's interpretation, as I see it, compromises the Act’s purposes without reason, see Orloski v. FEC, 795 F.2d 156, 164 (D.C.Cir.1986), citing Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 845, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2783, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984), the Commission’s reading should not attract deference.
My colleagues appear to attribute separate entity status to a “special project” of a "political committee.” See court’s opinion at 447. The special project, however, is nothing more than a label used by a political committee. The political committee is the only entity that exists.

. These and other illustrations appear in the Joint Appendix at 39, 183-262. Under the Commission’s interpretation, a political committee "project” whose name features the candidate’s name in order to solicit contributions, is not obligated to use contributors’ funds on behalf of that candidate.

. The FEC appears to recognize, albeit grudgingly, that unauthorized committees, under the Commission's reading of § 432(e)(4), may indeed use a candidate’s name "confusingly” in their letterheads, reply cards and envelopes, and on other identifying labels. See Brief for the FEC at 25. The FEC maintains, however, that Congress must rewrite the law if this confusion is to be dispelled. See Reply Brief for the FEC at 13-14. An amendment to § 432(e)(4), in view of the majority’s holding, would be in order.

. My colleagues assert that the "regulatory structure would be shattered” if a political committee could register more than one name. See court’s opinion at 443. That is as true as it is irrelevant. The question is whether, consistent with the conceded purpose of § 432(e)(4) "to eliminate confusion" among voters, see court’s opinion at 440, the candidate’s name may be used at all in a political committee’s identifying label in a manner that suggests the voter’s money is sought for, or on behalf of, the candidate.

.See abo Helvering v. Stockholms Enskilda Bank, 293 U.S. 84, 87, 55 S.Ct. 50, 51, 79 L.Ed. 211 (1934) (presumption that legislature intended identical words in different parts of same statute to have same meaning "readily yields to the controlling force of the circumstance that the words, though in the same act, are found in such dissimilar connections as to warrant the conclusion that they were employed in the different parts of the act with different intent").
Only by denigrating the confusion-avoidance purpose of Congress as mere "rhetoric,” see court’s opinion at 445, could one maintain that the position Common Cause has espoused "would also prohibit" use of the name "Americans against [Candidate X].” See court’s opinion at 445 n. 22.

. The sole proscription is on an unauthorized committee’s appropriation of the candidate’s name to refer to itself in any name the committee uses. The committee is unquestionably free to refer to the candidate as often as it chooses in the text of its political communications.