May 2012
27 posts
Not Quite Extraordinary
A new committee was registered with the FEC in early May: League of Gentlemen. But if you look closely at the email, I think we can assume that the treasurer meant to say “Extraordinary Gentlemen”.
Wisconsin = California
How can the same independent expenditure be in California and Wisconsin at the same time? Apparently the Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama knows how. (via Aaron Bycoffe)
How did a 21-year-old college kid from Nacogdoches... →
motherjones:
This is your campaign finance system on drugs.
Hey, it’s his money.
Software Limitations
We all hate it when software prevents us from doing what we want, such as filling out a field called “purpose”. Read now the testimony of Paul Kilgore, treasurer of the Madison Project PAC:
The purpose "LRI - Usual & Normal" on our report is
List Rental Income received by the committee. Due to a
software limitation on the number of characters allowed
in the purpose field, we...
What Miscellaneous Filings Are For
A message from the President/Treasurer/Grand Poobah of Why Not ZoidPAC?, filed at around 2:30 a.m.:
To Whom I May Concern: This memo is primarily intended as a test: I recognize the gravity generally attached to something like the submission of a form to the FEC, but I wanted to confirm for myself that the Federal Elections Comission lives up to its lofty goal of transparency.
It recently...
Return to Sender
In which the Republican Party of Florida assures the FEC that, unlike in the past, it will now send checks to vendors at the correct addresses:
Attempts to locate the correct mailing address and responsible person
to handle deposit of these checks has occurred and the Committee
expects all checks to subsequently be deposited by the vendors to
whom the checks are written.
Great PAC Names, Volume I
There are awards for so many trivial things, why not for political action committee names? It must be done.
For excellence in leadership PAC names, ChutzPAC, the committee of Representative Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California.
The Unapologetic Robo Call
Usually automated campaign telephone calls - known as “robo-calls” - are as popular as any other form of telemarketing, so you often see them described in filings as “voter contact” or “telephone calls” or something other slightly less, well, robotic. A quick search of 3.4 million campaign expenditures since 2009 found less than 1,000 expenditures labeled as...
Regulate This
Complying with Federal Election Commission regulations can make some committees cranky, but rare is the one that threatens legal action if the FEC doesn’t acknowledge that its non-filing is, in fact, a proper filing. Let me introduce you to the American Promise PAC’s “April Quarterly report” (emphasis mine):
April Quarterly Report-
No Contributions
No Expenditures
...
