Secretary of State: Federal groups supporting Alabama candidates must register with state
The Secretary of State’s office said in a statement Tuesday that federal organizations contributing to state campaigns will have to file campaign finance reports with the state.
The move, which Secretary of State John Merrill said Tuesday would include dark money groups, comes after years of controversy over the scope and application of Alabama’s ban on transfers of money between political action committees (PACs).
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“People asked about the U.S. Senate election in 2022,” Merrill said on Tuesday, referring to outside spending. “We believe if they’re trying to do that, make sure they’re filing according to state law.”
Before the Legislature banned the practice in 2010, PAC-to-PAC transfers were used to move campaign finance donations to hide the source of donations to political candidates. The law banning the transfers defines a PAC as a group that receives or expects to receive contributions that it spends or plans to spend on Alabama candidates, and applies it to any group, “whether in-state or out-of-state.”
But enforcement of the ban has been inconsistent. In 2011, a state PAC chaired by former Gov. Bob Riley, who signed the PAC-to-PAC ban into law the year before, accepted $50,000 from the Republican State Leadership Committee in Virginia. The Alabama Democratic Party filed a complaint about the donation, which Riley’s PAC returned, but a grand jury in 2012 said the law did not appear to give the state to the ability to prosecute out-of-state political action committees.
In 2018, a PAC affiliated with the Republican Attorneys General Association gave Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s state re-election campaign $735,000. The PAC had received funding from other PACs. But a court dismissed a complaint filed by former Attorney General Troy King, who ran against Marshall that year. After the election, the Alabama Ethics Commission said in a 3 to 2 vote there was “insufficient evidence” to bring a charge against Marshall.
Responding to an inquiry from Alabama Democratic Party chair Chris England in 2020, the commission issued an opinion saying the Democratic Party could not use federal funds for a state account.
“Alabama's PAC-to-PAC ban prohibits any ‘transfer of funds’ in addition to ‘contributions’ and ‘expenditures’ from one PAC to another or on behalf of ‘any Alabama state or local elected official, proposition, candidate, principal campaign committee or other political action committees,’ and provides no exception to that ban except for contributions, expenditures, or a transfer of funds made by a PAC directly to a candidate's Principal Campaign Committee,” the opinion said.
The new guidance from the Secretary of State’s office says that federal PACs seeking to intervene in an election must register as state PACs and file regular campaign finance reports. Merrill said the guidance would not be retroactive.
Outside spending in the Republican Senate primary included about $4.4 million by the Washington D.C.-based Club for Growth, which supported U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks of Huntsville against former Business Council of Alabama President and CEO Katie Britt. The Senate Leadership Fund, a PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, spent $1.4 million opposing Brooks.
During her re-election campaign, this spring Gov. Kay Ivey got $1.7 million from getting Families Back To Work, a dark money group affiliated with the Republican Governors Association. Merrill said an organization doing that “should be filing” campaign finance reports.
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Brian Lyman at 334-240-0185 or blyman@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Federal groups supporting Alabama candidates must register with state
