Pursuing America’s Greatness is a PAC that wants to make independent expenditures in support of Mike Huckabee’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. FEC rules do not permit independent expenditure committees to use the name of any candidate they they support in their social media account titles (nor can they use the candidate’s name in the name of the PAC). Thus, Pursuing America’s Greatness is not permitted to set up a Facebook page called “I like Mike Huckabee.”

On July 27, Pursuing America’s Greatness sued the FEC to overturn that rule. The PAC does not want to use its Facebook page to raise money; it merely wants to convey messages of support for Huckabee. The lawsuit is Pursuing America’s Greatness v FEC, U.S. Dist. Ct., D.C., 1:15cv-1217.

The lawsuit points out that the FEC does permit a PAC that opposes a particular candidate to use that candidate’s name in its social media account titles, and even in the name of the PAC itself. In 1994 the FEC permitted a group to call itself the “Citizens Against David Duke”.