Democracy 21, The Campaign Legal Center and the Center for Responsive Politics filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) Tuesday, alleging that America Coming Together (ACT) “has engaged, and is continuing to engage, in illegal activities,” including “knowing and willful” violations of the campaign finance laws.
The complaint charges ACT with illegally spending soft money on its efforts to defeat President George Bush. Soft money is traditionally used for educational ads, which do not advocate voting for a candidate. Hard money ads endorse a candidate.
The alleged violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act include ACT’s use of soft money to pay for its direct mail fundraising communications that are required to be funded with hard money, the organization’s calculation of the FEC allocation rules to spend more soft money on its voter mobilization activities than the rules allow, and ACT’s solicitation of funds.
According to its Web site, ACT is “the largest voter mobilization project in American history. Knocking on doors and speaking the truth, ACT canvassers are laying the groundwork to defeat George W. Bush and elect Democrats in federal, state and local elections in 2004.”
Attempts by Direct Newsline to reach ACT officials for comment regarding the complaint were unsuccessful.
“Federal political committees like ACT must use federal funds, or hard money, to pay for direct mail communications that promote, support, attack or oppose federal candidates, regardless of whether they contain ‘express advocacy,’” said Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer in a statement.
“Our complaint charges that ACT has been illegally funding its direct mail communications that attack and oppose Bush with 98% soft money and 2% hard money, instead of the 100% federal hard money they are required to use,” he added.
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