In an interesting twist yesterday, the FEC ruled that donors who contributed to the Specter campaign while he was a Republican can now be contacted and informed of their right to request a refund.
The FEC voted 4-2 to advise the Club for Growth -- a conservative group tied to Specter's main GOP rival -- that it was within its legal rights to contact Specter donors and remind them of his pledge to provide refunds to any contributors unhappy with his party switch. When Specter announced he was leaving the GOP earlier this year, he promised to return campaign contributions from the 2010 cycle "upon request."
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The FEC, which keeps tight restrictions on the use of donor lists, ruled that the Club for Growth can send one letter or make one telephone call to each donor, but the group cannot sell their names, addresses and telephone numbers to others, or request contributions.
In one sense, I see this as a marginal violation of privacy. If you give to a candidate more than $200 in an election cycle, campaigns are required to disclose you publicly, and you show up in public records. But there are lots of donors to campaigns who never show up. Is the Club for Growth now able to access the Specter campaign's entire donor list, even those who gave him $25 and $100? To me, I don't relish the prospect that the Club is able to view the names, addresses, occupations and employers of the entire Specter donor list, even if they are unable to use that information for their own fundraising purposes. I would hope the FEC required safeguards to keep the process blind should the Club decide to call or mail a donor.
Also, does this only apply to the Club, or can a group like National Right to Life contact these donors if they wanted to? I haven't seen answers to this anywhere.
On the other hand, this is good news for the Sestak camp- last FEC filing had Specter at $7.5 million and Sestak at $4.3 million. Specter had $5.8 million in the bank four weeks before he switched parties, which he had been raising since 2004, meaning almost 3/4 of his money was from people giving to a Republican. This may have a significant effect on draining his coffers.
Update: Over e-mail, a friend and campaign finance attorney says that the Club will only get to use information of those donors who are publicly available, e.g. contributors over $200 to the campaign per cycle. The Club is not allowed to use that information for resolicitation on their behalf.
Regarding the ability of conservative groups to "pile on" and each get one phone call and mail solicitation encouraging donors to ask for their money back, he writes:
As long as they're truly working independently, yes. The Commission seemed to place great weight on the privacy concerns of contributors and CfG's assurance that this was a one-shot letter or phone call.
To date, Specter has returned just $126,000 in individual contributions and $97,000 in PAC contributions. This could grow significantly if the Club and other groups all mobilize, although there are resource costs to them of doing that. I have doubts that a lot of people understood the vagueries of campaign finance law and knew they could get their money back.
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