Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics
in Washington (CREW),
media
release, 20 March 2018:
Washington—A federal
judge today granted Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
summary judgement in its landmark case against the Federal Election Commission
(FEC), the second time the Court has ruled against the FEC for dismissing
CREW’s complaint against a dark money group that spent millions in federal
elections.
Judge Christopher Cooper
ruled in September 2016 that the FEC acted “contrary to law” by dismissing a
complaint against American Action Network (AAN), which spent millions on ads
without revealing its donors, finding that the FEC’s analysis “blinks reality”
and returning the case to the FEC to correct its error. Nevertheless, the three
Republican commissioners once again blocked action against the organization,
leading Judge Cooper today to correct the commissioners on their continued
failure to follow the law.
This decision will have
a major impact on disclosure by dark money groups, as the FEC can no longer
ignore organizations’ spending on ads that air just before an election that try
to hide their political purposes behind a sham “call” for viewers to contact
their representatives about legislation.
“This decision marks a
major victory not just for CREW but for believers in an open and transparent
political process,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said. “We hope to
see a major change in the way the FEC approaches investigations of nonprofit
organizations engaged in politics.”
The case revolves around
clearly political ads aired by AAN which the FEC decided were not meant to influence
an election. The judge wrote in the first decision that “it blinks reality to
conclude that many of the ads considered by the Commissioners in this case were
not designed to influence the election or defeat of a particular candidate.”
Yet the FEC still failed to act. The judge wrote in today’s decision, “The
controlling Commissioners did not find that this ad (nor any others mentioning
healthcare) had an election-related purpose…Seriously?”
“It’s a shame we have to
keep taking the FEC to court to make it do its job,” Bookbinder said.
“Unfortunately, they have given us no other choice. If they do not want to keep
losing in court, they should start enforcing the law.”
Click here to
read the decision
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