According to the Election Law Blog, the staff of the Federal Elections Commission on January 6 recommended that the FEC not extend the Socialist Workers Party’s long-standing freedom from reporting contributions and expenditures. See the story here. The FEC commissioners will meet on January 12 to vote on whether to accept the staff recommendation.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
“The party was exempted from disclosure of its donors and vendors due to evidence of threats to its supporters…”
Strange that this is an exemption that could be invoked by minor controversial fringe parties, but not in the instance where it is most obviously and most often true: the major parties and their candidates.
It’s also odd that the government would acknowledge that possibility when it’s one of the main constitutional and policy arguments against mandatory disclosure in general.
Actually it is not that odd. At the time the exemption began the SWP was able to easily prove that it had long been a target of federal and local police harassment and had been a central sufferer of Cointelpro. I don’t think the Libertarian Party has ever been a target of Cointelpro or similar police oppression, has it?
What actually does seem odd to me is that the SWP has been permitted to use this exemption long after it is no longer anysort of semi-serious “threat” to the capitalist system.
The L.P. hasn’t (well, depends on who you ask, but… no), however there’s no shortage of people who will harass and threaten people for donations to the Republican or Democratic parties or their candidates.
I would be surprised if there *weren’t* any threats to disclosed donors in the 2016 election.