Right-wing 501(c) is running millions of ads against Bob Casey, yet refuses to name its donors. Hence the Casey campaign has
filed a complaint with the FEC:
Bob Casey Jr. filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, alleging a third-party group that has run ads in support of Sen. Rick Santorum violated federal election laws.
Casey -- Pennsylvania's treasurer and Santorum's likely Democratic challenger in the 2006 election -- alleges the group did not reveal the identity of its donors.
The group, Americans for Job Security, ''conspired to make illegal corporate expenditures in connection with a federal election, failed to register and report as a political committee with the Federal Election Commission, and failed to comply with disclaimer requirements,'' according to the complaint.
Michael Dubke, president of the Virginia-based group, denied any wrongdoing. He said his group is not a political committee so it is not required to make such disclosures.
Americans for Job Security is registered under 501(c) of the federal tax code, a classification that allows groups to engage in political activity without revealing contributors as long as that is not their main activity. It has run about $1 million in ads in Pennsylvania television markets in support of Santorum and his Social Security plan.
There's another sub-plot to this story: soft-dollar funded political groups are not allowed to "coordinate" with political campaigns or parties. Period. Yet both ads by the Rick Santorum camapigns and the right-wing Americans for Job Security used the exact same footage of a grandfather walking with his grandson. What a coincidence!
So there's more here than a simple disclosure of donors. There's also a violation of the supposed firewall between campaigns and any entity funded by unregulated soft dollars.
(But don't expect Fred Wertheimer and Democracy 21 to be on the case. They're too busy going after bloggers and free speech on the internet to worry about millions of unregulated dollars being spent on television on behalf of federal candidates.)