TPM has a article up (Click Here) where Elaine Marshall's campaign used FEC donor filings to contact anybody who gave money to Cunningham and sent them a three page letter as to why Cunningham can't win. Since they didn't solicit money explicitly using the FEC donor filings isn't illegal in this instance.
However the letter closes with "I invite you to join our campaign so we can begin the process of defeating Richard Burr in November."
The FEC forbids "anyone from selling or using the names and addresses of individual contributors, copied from FEC reports, for commercial purposes or for the purposes of soliciting funds."
There was also a further restriction on the use of donor names in a 2003 FEC advisory opinion, which says that using donor names for communications purposes would "fall within the realm of harassment Congress wanted to prevent."
Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/...
So while the Marshall campaign can say "we didn't solicit funds" what does "join our campaign" mean when reaching out specifically to Cunningham donors?
And this would certainly fall under the 2003 FEC advisory opinion - using donor names for communications purposes would "fall within the realm of harassment Congress wanted to prevent. Marshall used FEC filings in order to hunt out and contact Cunningham donors and try to depress Cunningham's fundraising ability with a personalized mailing.
Here is the TPM link to the full three page letter sent - http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
The Marshall Campaign offered up this when questioned on the legality of it -
"I checked with my compliance people and they said 'You are fine,'" Mills told the paper. "We just want to reach out to good Democrats and begin uniting behind the likely nominee for the U.S. Senate in the fight against Richard Burr and to prevent folks from throwing good money after bad."
So even if there wasn't an explicit solicitation of money, Mills does admit the Marshall campaign was trying to depress Cunningham's fundraising potential. To me it sounds like they're exploiting a loophole and skirting the spirit of the rule. If you can't use FEC filings to fundraise, I doubt you'd be able to use FEC filings to contact a rivals donors to try and stop them from donating.
When further prodded on the strategy -
Was this letter a sort of psychological operation to discourage Cunningham's supporters, I asked? Mills said that the point of the letter had been to "bring people together, because now the fight mainly is against Richard Burr."
Funny way to bring people together by using FEC lists to contact them and tell them how they're wasting their money. If folks give money to candidates that usually means they really believe in them and this election isn't even over yet.
Elaine Marshall's campaign is trying to act like they are the inevitable candidate, but they're surely not acting like it with this mailing.