Commission sends annual legislative recommendations to President and Congress (2005)

On March 25, 2005, the Commission transmitted to the President and Congress its annual recommendations for changes to the Federal Election Campaign Act. Of the 16 recommendations transmitted, the Commission identified as high priority:

• Adding the FEC to the list of agencies authorized to issue immunity orders under 18 U.S.C. § 6001(1);
  
• Increasing the record retention period from three to five years under 2 U.S.C. § 432(d);
  
• Providing that any person may later be named a respondent if that person is found, during an enforcement action, to have aided or abetted another party in violating the Act (if passed into law, this would be new section 2 U.S.C. § 441j);
  
• Making the administrative fine program permanent under 2 U.S.C. §437g; and
  
• Requiring Senate candidates to file electronically at the same thresholds as House and presidential campaign committees under 2 U.S.C. §§ 432(g) and 434(a)(11).
  

Some of the other 11 recommendations in the legislative package include stabilizing the Presidential Public Funding Program and indexing for inflation both the limit on contributions by one authorized committee to another and the contribution limits applicable to multicandidate political committees.  Other recommendations address issues that arose when rules were implemented for the 2003-2004 election cycle under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, including recommendations to:

• Eliminate the requirement that candidates disclose on their Statement of Candidacy the amount by which they intend to exceed the personal spending threshold under the Millionaires’ Amendment at 2 U.S.C. §§ 434(a)(6)(B) and 441a-1(b); and 

• Modify the definition of “federal election activity” to allow state, district and local party committees to compensate an employee in biweekly, semimonthly or monthly periods when he or she spend more than 25 percent of hisor her time in connection with a federal election, under 2 U.S.C. § 431(20)(A)(iv).

The full text of the Commission’s 2005 legislative recommendations is available on the FEC website.