Solis’ McCain-Feingold Ethics Problem
Hans von Spakovsky /
Barack Obama can’t seem to win for losing when it comes to his nominees. Earlier this week, I wrote about the possible ethics violations committed by Congresswoman Hilda Solis, who has been nominated by President Obama to head the Labor Department. Not only was she the treasurer and on the board of directors of American Rights at Work, an organization lobbying Congress on bills she cosponsored, but she failed to reveal that information as required on financial disclosure forms until January 29.
The nomination of Solis was supposed to be voted out of committee on Thursday, but was postponed indefinitely just after USA Today reported that her husband paid off $6,400 in tax liens against his business on Wednesday, some of which had been outstanding for as long as 16 years.
Now the DC Examiner is reporting what could turn out to be an even more serious problem, one with potential criminal consequences. According to the report, American Rights at Work collected “at least $1 million in contributions from labor unions.” It also filed electioneering communications reports with the Federal Election Commission prior to the November election showing that ARW spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television ads in states targeting Republican senators.
One of the purposes of the 2002 McCain-Feingold amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act (“FECA”) was to drive “soft money” out of federal election campaigns. “Soft money” refers to funds that are outside of the limits and prohibitions of the federal law and was considered one of the biggest loopholes in the campaign finance system. And one of those long-standing prohibitions is that unions are barred from spending funds to influence federal elections and making contributions to federal candidates, as are corporations and national banks.
To accomplish the objective of getting rid of soft money, §441i(e) of FECA prohibits a candidate or an individual holding federal office or “an entity directly or indirectly established, financed, maintained or controlled by or acting on behalf of” such a candidate or officeholder from soliciting, receiving, directing, transferring or spending funds in connection with an election for Federal office “unless the funds are subject to the limitations [and] prohibitions” of FECA. In other words, (more…)