I have been following the debate about whether the soft money donations to the section 527 groups like moveon.org will be allowed for this election in my diary. Up until this week it looked like the republicans had the votes necessary on the FEC to ban soft money donations to these groups, but it appeared that the FEC chairman (a republican) had changed his mind and would vote to allow the large donations. This would have deadlocked the FEC 3-3 and the donations would probably still be allowed if congress did not step in to close the loophole.
However, this quote today in the Hill has me wondering if there will be another last minute change of heart from the Commissioner and that the soft money may be banned after all.
Nevertheless, the commission is likely to issue an unambiguous statement today on the legality of these groups.
"We need to give people a red light or a green light," said Smith. "We're not going to give a cautionary yellow light. I'm not going to let the committee split three-three on that."
That implies that Smith is ready to switch his stance on 527s to ensure that the commission issues a preliminary ruling one way or the other on shadow party structures.
It sounds as if there are 3 solid votes to ban the soft money donations, so the deadlock would have been the best possible outcome for people who want to see the soft money allowed. If the Commissioner is saying that he will not allow his vote to deadlock the panel then it seems very likely that the FEC will vote to ban the soft money.
The vote is scheduled for today so we should have some sort of resolution to this issue soon.