With the swearing in of Shana M. Broussard, Sean J. Cooksey, and Allen Dickerson, the Federal Election Commission now has a full roster of six Commissioners for the first time since 2017. While the FEC briefly enjoyed a quorum with four Commissioners in May, since then it has lacked a sufficient number of Commissioners to
straw donor
Avoiding Straw Donor Issues
By Brendan Parets on
Posted in Campaign Finance
While federal campaign finance enforcement priorities can and do shift, prosecutions of “conduit contributions” or “straw donors” have remained steady over the years. Unlike most of federal campaign finance law, the law around straw donors is stable and well developed, and straw donor prosecutions tend to be straightforward. The recent media coverage surrounding allegations that…
Increased Enforcement Risk for Criminal Campaign Finance Violations
By Robert Kelner, Peter Koski & William Sokolove on
Posted in Campaign Finance, Enforcement
Every four years, prosecutors at the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) train their sights on money spent to influence the outcome of the presidential election—and those who spend it. While the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has exclusive jurisdiction to penalize and enforce civil violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), 52 U.S.C. § 30101 et …
“Straw Donor” Cases Are In The News Again Today
By Robert Kelner on
Posted in Campaign Finance, Enforcement
In a 2014 blog post about the Dinesh D’Souza case, we speculated that it might have been one of the first “straw donor” cases identified based on automated analysis of campaign finance disclosure reports. It’s not clear that was actually the case, though the Department of Justice did say at the time that “the…