Free Speech Coalition Comments to FEC on Membership

admin Administrative Law, Election Law

On behalf of the Free Speech Coalition, we filed comments with the Federal Election Commission supporting the proposed changes to revise the definition of a “member” of a membership organization, so long as the changes set forth in FSC’s comments are incorporated into the adopted regulations.  The first change is that membership organizations be permitted to waive the dues criterion for membership in appropriate instances according to predetermined specific criteria (such as financial hardship) approved by the organization’s governing body, restoring the pre-1993 status quo. Next, FSC requests that the expanded requirements imposed on membership organizations to state expressly the rights, qualifications, obligations, and requirements for membership in its articles, bylaws and other formal organizational documents and to make these documents freely available to its members be stricken from the final regulations.  The last change is that certain proposed sections which reject the state law definitions of “membership organizations” and “member” be removed from the final regulations.

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