FEC approves advisory opinion, repayment determination, and campaign guide

WASHINGTON – The Federal Election Commission today approved an advisory opinion. The Commission approved a Statement of Reasons on repayment of public funds and a new campaign guide prior to today’s open meeting.

Advisory Opinion 2021-09 (Certified Voter). The Commission approved Advisory Opinion Request 2021-09 in response to a request by Certified Voter, LLC, which intends to sell services to political committees whereby it creates customized “sponsored” versions of the committees’ own political advertisements. As proposed in the request, a contributor would make a contribution to a political committee and would then be presented with the option to be identified as the “sponsor” of an ad already created by the political committee. The requestor would then create a brief message to be appended to the ad, including the sponsor’s name and hometown. The Commission concluded that Certified Voter may sell sponsored advertisement services to political committees for a commercially reasonable fee as proposed because in doing so it does not make any in-kind contribution to client political committees. On September 27, the Commission received Supplemental Material from the requestor, and during the open meeting discussion, the Commission heard from the requestor.

Statement of Reasons in Support of Repayment Determination After Administrative Review - Dr. Jill Stein, Jill Stein for President. Prior to the meeting, the Commission approved a Statement of Reasons concluding that Dr. Jill Stein and Jill Stein for President must repay $175,272 to the United States Treasury, representing surplus public funds in the Committee’s accounts and public funds received in excess of entitlement.

Campaign Guide for Candidates and Committees. Prior to the meeting, the Commission voted to approve the draft Campaign Guide for Candidates and Committees, written to help U.S. House and Senate candidates, as well as Presidential candidates who do not seek public funding, comply with the Federal Election Campaign Act and FEC regulations.