While visiting fivethirtyeight.com, I clicked through a banner ad that caught my eye: an ad for "The McCain-Palin Compliance Fund ."
What is this fund, and what is it for? More follows....
I followed the links through to the actual donation page. At the bottom of the page I saw this:
An individual may contribute up to $2,300, a couple may contribute up to $4,600, and a federal multi-candidate PAC may contribute up to $5,000 to the Compliance Fund. Contributions to the Compliance Fund will be used solely for legal and accounting services to ensure compliance with federal law, including a portion of the cost of broadcast advertising, campaign offices, and computer/website expenses.
https://secure.donationreport.com/...
This makes no sense to me. A campaign that is taking public financing is also accepting "compliance fund" donations for commercials and campaign expenses? How exactly is this fund helping them "comply" with public financing laws?
I apologize that this diary doesn't have more analysis, but what I'm really looking for is commentary on how this "Compliance Fund" relates to McCain's acceptance of public financing. Is it an end-run around public financing, and if so, shouldn't he be crtiticized mercilessly over this, considering his snide jabs at Obama's choice not to take public financing?
Edited to add: This little gem also appears in the fine print on the donation page (linked above):
Federal law prohibits the Compliance Fund contributions from being used for a candidate's election.
Would anyone care to guess how commercials, campaign offices, and website design/maintenance are not used for a candidate's election?
UpdateX2: Thanks to a helpful Kossack, we have this explanation for compliance funds:
http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/...
A couple things to ponder from that site:
These funds are used to pay for lawyers and accountants, computer services and to defray other costs related to complying with campaign finance law.
How do commercials, campaign offices, and websites fall under the "lawyers, accountants, and computer services [presumably administrative rather than web-based] related to compliance" umbrella?
Capital Eye: To get around the public financing spending limit, could a candidate hire lawyers and accountants to do the mundane work of a campaign—door-knocking, phone-banking, etc.—and pay for it through their GELAC, claiming it was a legal or accounting expense?
Ryan : That would be a commission of fraud. That would be illegal. The regulations are pretty clear in terms of what can be paid for out of the GELAC funds. The permissibility of using GELAC funds doesn't depend on the identity or the claimed profession of the person being paid, but instead on the activities being paid for.