FEC not 'Ready for Warren'
Ditch your name — or else, federal election regulators are telling an upstart super PAC that's urging Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to seek the presidency.
In a letter Sunday, the Federal Election Commission explained to Chicago-based "Ready for Warren PAC" that only committees authorized by a federal political candidate may use the candidate's name.
If not — and Ready for Warren PAC isn't — "you must amend your statement of organization to change the name of your political committee so that it does not include the candidate's name and/or provide further clarification regarding the nature of your committee," FEC campaign finance analyst Romy Adame-Wilson told the super PAC.
Failure to comply with the law may "result in an enforcement action against the committee" or an audit, the FEC wrote in its letter.
The Ready for Warren PAC officially formed Aug. 7. Erica Sagrans, Ready for Warren PAC's treasurer, confirmed that "the goal of our campaign is to draft Elizabeth Warren to run for president in 2016."
Sagrans noted that candidate draft committees aren't subject to federal political committee naming rules and, by law, may use a federal candidate's name as part of its own.
Federal rules also note, however, that draft committees may use a candidate's name "provided the committee's name clearly indicates that it is a draft committee."
Sagrans declined to comment on whether she believes the name “Ready for Warren PAC” adequately indicates it's a draft committee.
Related: 'Ready for Warren' to change name
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This story is part of Primary Source. Primary Source keeps you up-to-date on developments in the post-Citizens United world of money in politics. Click here to read more stories in this blog.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
