Judge voids several campaign-fund rules

WASHINGTON – A judge has struck down several government rules on campaign fund raising, ordering tougher restrictions on big political money in the long term while creating uncertainty about how candidates, parties and interest groups should proceed in the current election’s final weeks.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly did not specifically address how political spenders in the 2004 campaign should act in the absence of the rules, which spell out how the Federal Election Commission interprets the nation’s campaign finance law.

Lawyers for Democratic and Republican campaigns said they were assuming the FEC’s current regulations would remain in effect while new rules were written. They noted that the judge declined to issue an order blocking the commission from enforcing the regulations while it worked on new ones.

At least two commissioners, Republican Michael Toner and Democrat Scott Thomas, said they wanted further guidance from FEC lawyers or the judge before concluding the current rules are still in place for this election.

If there is any debate about it, the commission should seek a stay of the ruling or advice from the judge on which rules are in effect, Toner said.

Four of the commission’s six members said Monday it was likely the agency would appeal the ruling.

Kollar-Kotelly said some of the regulations the FEC adopted after the law was passed in 2002 would “create an immense loophole” Congress never intended. The judge’s ruling was released Saturday on a court Web site and was discovered Monday by many of the key parties.

The decision was seen as a victory for lawmakers who sponsored the 2002 law and have accused the FEC of weakening restrictions on big donations.

The judge overturned several FEC rules, including those that:

• Imposed a narrow test to determine whether a lawmaker was violating the soft money solicitation ban. Under the FEC rules, the only way a federal candidate or officeholder could violate the solicitation ban would be by explicitly asking for soft money.

• Exempted Internet ads from rules on coordination among interest groups, federal candidates and national party committees.

• Let the president, vice president and members of Congress solicit soft money for state parties in speeches at state party fund-raisers.

• Exempted an entire class of tax-exempt organizations from a ban on the use of corporate or union money for ads mentioning presidential or congressional candidates within a month before a primary or two months before a general election.

• Defined coordination only as agreement between a spender and candidate or party.

• Excluded coordinated ads aired more than 120 days before an election.