Van Hollen Statement on FEC Decision

Statement

Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen today issued the following statement in response to the Federal Election Commission's (FEC) decision to reject his petition to require outside groups making "independent expenditures' to disclose their contributors:

"Today, the FEC deadlocked in a vote to take up my Petition to conduct a rulemaking to revise their regulations that govern campaign "independent expenditures.' The existing regulations do not conform to statutory requirements. As a result, they have considerably undermined the law's requirement for outside groups making these "independent expenditures' to disclose their contributors.

"The FEC's regulations that compel the disclosure of contributors to "electioneering communications' have similarly been lax. As a result, on April 21, 2011, I filed a lawsuit against the FEC requesting that these regulations be struck down because they are not consistent with the current law that requires greater disclosure of campaign donors.

"The current, inadequate regulations governing "independent expenditures' and "electioneering communications' have resulted in tens of millions of dollars of secret donations being used to fund expenditures in the 2010 congressional races. Unless these abuses are corrected we are likely to see considerably more secret donations used to influence the outcome of the 2012 elections. This must stop.

"In light of the deadlock today over my Petition, I will now consider bringing a second lawsuit against the FEC challenging the regulations that were pending before the FEC today. These regulations have gutted the disclosure requirements for outside groups making "independent expenditures' and must be corrected to reflect current law that requires enhanced donor disclosure."
Van Hollen's petition is available on the FEC's website at http://sers.nictusa.com/fosers under "REG 2011-01 Independent Expenditure Reporting (2011)."

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