CREW, CLC sue FEC to strike down unlawful advisory opinion on canvassing coordination
On May 6, 2026, Campaign Legal Center and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to declare a 2024 Federal Election Commission (FEC) advisory opinion (AO) unlawful and set it aside. The FEC’s AO permits outside spenders — including super PACs like Elon Musk’s America PAC — to outsource and conceal millions of dollars in campaign spending through overtly coordinated canvassing efforts.
After receiving a request from Texas Majority PAC inquiring whether payments for certain canvassing-related activities counted as contributions to a federal candidate when done in coordination with the candidate, the FEC issued an AO declaring this spending exempt from crucial campaign finance laws.
As a result, the FEC effectively created a new category of expenditures that may be coordinated directly with candidates while evading federal restrictions and disclosure requirements that apply to coordinated spending. Without enforceable contribution limits or meaningful transparency with respect to this spending, wealthy special interests — or anyone in the market for political favors — can spend unlimited amounts directly influencing candidates and officeholders.
“The massive loophole opened by the FEC in 2024 has already led to rampant abuse. By disregarding an explicit statutory directive on what is considered a contribution, the FEC has enabled unfettered coordination between candidates and outside groups to take place, often without any disclosure,” said Megan McAllen, director of campaign finance litigation at Campaign Legal Center. “This erroneous conclusion exacerbates the FEC’s status quo of condoning unlawful coordination and secret spending. Above all, voters and the public are being left in the dark as to the scale and scope of this unreported, overtly coordinated spending on canvassing activities benefiting federal candidates. We urge the court to recognize this opinion as unlawful by upholding decades of campaign finance precedent and enforcing the laws meant to ensure our elections are free from corruption and its appearance, and to defend voters’ right to know who is spending to influence our elections.”
“With this advisory opinion, the FEC has opened the door to blatant corruption by allowing wealthy donors and special interests to spend huge amounts in coordination with candidates, with minimal public disclosure. This goes against decades of precedent, and has denied voters the ability to know who is spending big to influence their votes,” said Stuart McPhail, director of campaign finance litigation at CREW. “Instead of acting in the best interest of American voters, the FEC acted in the best interest of big dollar donors. The court must step in and reject this illegal opinion.”
Background
The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971 was designed to increase transparency so that voters can make informed decisions and limit the risk of corruption, and so that elected officials represent the interests of the voters, rather than being beholden to special interests. FECA does so, in part, by restricting the sources and amounts of contributions to federal candidates and requiring candidates to file periodic financial disclosure reports that inform the electorate of who is spending money to influence their votes. Despite this, the FEC responded in their AO that expenditures for canvassing coordinated with a candidate’s campaign are not “coordinated expenditures” and thus aren’t subject to reporting or FECA’s amount and source limits.
In Buckley v. Valeo, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that coordinated expenditures essentially function as “disguised contributions.” Any failure to regulate them risks corruption and deprives the public of valuable information as to the true sources of candidates’ financial backing. Creating categories of unregulated expenditures creates new opportunities for wealthy special interests to corrupt our federal elections by funding outside groups and allowing them to do so in secret.