This week, the D.C. District Court held plaintiffs had no claim against the FEC in a particular matter. In this case, Shaun McCutcheon, and his campaign, McCutcheon for Freedom, previously sought an advisory opinion from the FEC. McCutcheon was seeking to transfer money from his self-funded campaign to a national party committee. While candidates who are wholly self-funded are rare; this is not a new issue.
Earlier this year, APT filed a complaint with the FEC regarding a transfer made by Michael Bloomberg’s campaign to the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Bloomberg funded his own campaign and then transferred $18 million of that money to the DNC. By doing this, he avoided contribution limits if he had given directly to the DNC. In this instance, Mr. McCutcheon filed a request with the FEC seeking to do the same. Yet, due to a lack of quorum by the FEC, no decision was ever reached. This lawsuit was an attempt to get the Commission to address this issue. However, at this time, the case was dismissed without a decision on the ability to make unlimited transfers to national party committees from a self-funded campaign.
Please see here to read the details regarding the case.
Also, APT previously submitted comments with the FEC regarding this issue.
