"Yesterday CCP, with the capable help of our friends at Patton Boggs, filed an amicus curiae brief with the Colorado Supreme Court, in Colorado Ethics Watch v. Senate Majority Fund. In this case, the CEW is urging the state to follow one of several legal innovations in their continuing effort to end run recent campaign finance decisions.
The particular technique CEW advocates is the conflation of 'express advocacy' and 'the functional equivalent of express advocacy'—then taking this new vague standard and making it the test for political committee status. Thus a 527 group engaged in electioneering (and reporting the same), but not express advocacy, will under CEW's approach become a political committee, if the electioneering is deemed the 'functional equivalent' of express advocacy. "
CCP files brief in Colo. case
Center for Competitive Politics:
