This file contains archived live captions of the open meeting of the Federal Election Commission held on February 7, 2019. This file is not a transcript of the meeting, and it has not been reviewed for accuracy or approved by the Federal Election Commission.


Good morning. Welcome to the Federal election commission's first open meeting of 2019. Those are words I planned on saying much earlier this year. The shutdown has meant we start the year off already behind in fulfilling our important mission, the 2020 election is underway. I read about a new candidate throwing his or her hat into the ring every day, if past elections are any guide the upcoming is almost certain to involve the raising and spending of billions, the job of the FEC is to ensure the public knows where the money is coming from and where it goes. Congress requires the campaign- finance transparency as a protection against the potentially corrosive influence of money in politics, the Supreme Court has upheld as critical to ensuring informed citizenry and power to hold public officials accountable. The FEC performs a vital anticorruption mission in our democracy, I believe in the work we do here and I am proud to take the agency helm at this important time. I do so with a positive attitude tempered by experience. We are able to do this important job to the dedication, hard work and public service of each and every employee of this agency, I say to all of our staff welcome back I am very glad to see you all. I am glad to welcome back some new attorneys who hung in there and were supposed to start during the shutdown and were unable to do so but still showed up for work when we were able to get up and running again, thank you. I am painfully aware of the hardships imposed upon you the staff and the families by the shutdown and I'm grateful to you all for continued service and I know I can count on you to help us catch up and move forward. We have our work cut out for us, we must continue to confront ongoing attacks on democracy by foreign adversaries, aggressive actors are innovating new ways to hide sources of political money. We have hundreds of cases on the enforcement docket. 326 to be precise. Over 50 imperiled by looming statute of limitations, we have to keep up with review processing and disclosure of the ever increasing volume of political activity. We are starting late, we have a lot to do and I will push hard to get it done but it's going to take sustained cooperation of every member of the commission to make real progress. There are cases that have languished too long, cases that have been held up and that has to stop. I am pleased to serve in a leadership capacity with my colleague Matt Peterson, the first time we have served together as chair and vice chairman. We have a very cordial relationship and he has prepared to work with me and get the work of this agency done. I believe he is a man of his word so let's get to work. As I look forward to the coming year in addition to tackling enforcement backlog I see opportunities for bipartisan action. There are issues where we can find common ground I would like to see us move forward to take stronger measures against scamming, we should not sit by while bad actors siphon off money American citizens thought they were donating to their favorite candidates. I believe my colleagues share this concern, I continue to hope we will come to consensus on new roles for Internet advertising disclaimers, the process got stalled last year but I intend to light a fire under it to see if we can't get it done. The FEC is already a hub for information, as chair I want to provide a space for serious discussion of the important issues facing democracy. To that end I will invite provocative and thoughtful speakers to come to the FEC and share their perspectives. I will be organizing events to create opportunities for people to engage with other people who may be outside their normal silo. I have been hoping to launch this in January and obviously that was unable to happen so we will have two in February on the afternoon February 21. That day I will convene a panel to discuss how money was raised and spent during the 2018 midterm elections with fresh analysis based on the year end reports just filed. I am delighted to announce the Center for responsive politics and the campaign-finance Institute now part of the national Institute on money and politics have agreed to come share their latest research. They are two of the strongest experts in the field that I know of so there will be more details on that as we arrange it. From 3:00 until 5:00 P.M. February 21 I will host a reception for the campaign- finance community, many of you have not had the opportunity to check out our new building. If you are an advocate for fewer restrictions, campaign- finance reform or or journalist come on down and start a conversation with someone with a different perspective. I will send out invitations soon for those who I could find email addresses but if you are interested please don't stand on ceremony, everyone is welcome, light refreshments will be served. They are light because I will be paying for them but I look forward to seeing a lot of people here and making new friends and reconnecting with some old ones. I see opportunities for progress outside the building, Vice Chairman Peterson will partner with me to go to Capitol Hill to meet with oversight committees to advocate for the FEC legislative recommendations. Every year we send ledger over to the hill and we wait. Not a lot happens. So this year we are going to try to go and move the ball forward. Which is, I don't think we have done that before. These recommendations have been carefully considered by the commission, they have unanimous support here and they deserve to get a full hearing by Congress, solid commonsense proposals and if the gridlocked FEC can get behind these recommendations perhaps there's hope for a broader agreement. Some proposals will extend personal use restrictions to all political committees enhancing the ability to protect the public and reinforce the ban on fraudulent misrepresentation of campaign authority. One proposal would restore a FEC regulation knocked down by the courts, the regulation prohibited aiding or abetting contributions in the name of another. It was struck down because the court thought we did not have the appropriate statutory so Congress could correct that. Some proposed legislation would really help this agency run better by giving us the authority to create Senior executive service positions. I believe we are in a moment when democracy issues have captured the public's imagination. The time may be right for progress, if you care about any issue, you have to care about campaign-finance because it affects every issue. Who gets elected and what gets enacted. The American people deserve the transparency about money in politics promised by Congress and the Supreme Court. I look forward to working with my colleagues and our staff to follow the money and shed some light on our democracy. I would like to take a moment to thank the FEC staff who worked hard during the shutdown without pay or scrambled to catch up when the agency reopened. This has been an intensely stressful and frustrating experience and I am so grateful to everyone. One of the key concerns about the agency being shut down was that computer systems had to remain secure. The FEC learn from the past and this time we had 21 staff members involved in making sure no intruder could breach the system and I sincerely thank all of those who worked hard and well without pay to protect the systems and data during the shutdown. I would also like to recognize , our legal advisors who are still non-furloughed and helped give important advice that helped us navigate we could and couldn't do, the few of us that were not furloughed. I need to make a special thank you to Kim Humphreys who kept my computer and email working, without which I could not have done anything so thank you. I would especially like to recognize Alec Palmer the staff director and the head of I.T. most importantly the furloughed manager who did the best to keep staff informed during the shutdown and coordinated recovery. He was one person who is not sitting twiddling his thumbs during the shutdown. This whole experience would've been more difficult for staff without the flow of information and assistance, so thank you. When the commission reopened we found ourselves not surprisingly buried in reports between the 30 day post general filings that arrived during the shutdown and the year and reports everyone filed by the end of January. When we were up and running the reports analysis division found itself was 17.6 million pages of reports to go through, this always astonishes and amazes me the volume of material analysts managed to go through. They are incredibly efficient and they are backlogged the staff dive right in and I am confident they will work their usual miracles so thank you. The last person I need to thank is someone who is leaving us. We learned very recently that our longtime head of enforcement is departing the agency, she will be a partner at , joining some former FEC workers like former Commissioner and former EA . Good friends of the FEC. I'm sure she's going to do great work and she is leaving us some big shoes to fill. Kathleen joined in 2002 even before I got here as a staff attorney and stepped up to serve as acting enforcement chief three times before being named to the job on a permanent basis two years ago. Before joining FEC Kathleen work at the federal programs branch at DOJ civil division and is a graduate of Boston College and Cornell law. She came here extremely well- qualified. Was incredibly dedicated as a public servant and worked very hard every day for the FEC and the American people so we wish you well, we will miss you. We know you will be very successful and give your clients great advice. So if they mess up it will be on them. That concludes my opening remarks. I want to say a word about the agenda which look short and is actually even shorter. The audit division recommendation memorandum on Tony Cardenas for Congress we have been asked to hold over due to unforeseen illness on part of our staff. There seems to be the flu going around in audit so we wish staff a quick and speedy recovery and that will be back on the agenda of the next meeting if not before then. The proposed final audit reports, for friends of Eric Paulsen and Marsha Blackburn for Congress were resolved on tally. Approved by Talley Vo on the Commissioner so we have nothing more to discuss on that which leaves only the draft notice of availability on REG 2018-05 size and disclaimer for TV ads and for that Mr. Vice Chairman we need a motion. 

Thank you, I move to suspend the rules until the commission may consider agenda document number 19-04-A the draft notice of availability on REG 2018-05. 

Any discussion on the motion? If not I will call the question all in favor say I. 

I. First motion of the new year passes unanimously. Thank you. What can you tell us Mr. Buckley? 

Agenda document 19-04-A contains a draft notification of availability for petition for rulemaking submitted to the commission by extreme reach. A company managing distribution of commercials to TV broadcasters. Petition asks to revise the regulation regarding the size of letters and certain television add disclaimers. The notification seeks comment on if the commission should commence a rulemaking based on this petition. The comment period will run for 60 days following publication of the notification in the Federal Register. After the comment period has concluded and after comments have been considered the commission may decide whether to initiate rulemaking. I am happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Buckley? Does not look like it. It is rare that you hear someone asking for finer print, the print is too big. We will see what the public has to say about this petition. Do we have a motion? Mr. Vice Chairman? 

Thank you Madam chair. I move that we approve the draft notice of availability on REG 2018-05 the size of letters and disclaimer set forth in agenda document number 19-04-A. 

Any discussion on the motion? If not I will call the question all in favor say I. I. I heard four so there can be no no. The motion passes unanimously yet again. All motions of course have to pass unanimously these days. And that concludes the formal agenda. Mr. Palmer are there any management or minister to matters ? 

There are no such matters. >> Thank you, Mr. Palmer with that the first meeting of 2019 is adjourned. Stay tuned for future developments. Do come to the party on the 21st.