In a recent op-ed, Joe Trotter, Media Manager for the Center for Competitive Politics argues that a chart prepared by the Campaign Legal Center that broadly summarizes the disclosure requirements for political ads shows that the current campaign finance rules are too complex. This may come as a surprise to CCP, but we agree that the current laws have been made unnecessarily complicated, and also ineffective. We are also aware that any attempt to summarize the law in a readable chart requires oversimplifying some important distinctions. That is why the chart expressly states that it “is intended to provide a general summary of federal political advertising rules [and] … does not capture all of the nuances and exceptions in the law. It should not be relied upon as legal advice for particular circumstances or situations.” Thus, contrary to Mr. Trotter’s suggestion, the chart was never intended to be a complete statement of the law.

But what Mr. Trotter does not explain is that the law and regulations are complex because over the last 40 years the Supreme Court has engaged in an aggressive rewriting of the campaign finance legislation enacted by Congress, creating a complicated patchwork, some of which makes sense only to the Supreme Court. For example, in the FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life decision, to which CCP refers, the Supreme Court actually took the straightforward definition of electioneering communication drafted by Congress and previously upheld by the Court in McConnell v. FEC, and rewrote it so there was one definition of electioneering communication for disclosure purposes and a different definition as applied to the prohibition on corporations and unions making electioneering communications. Of course, a few years later in Citizens United v. FEC, the Court effectively struck down the prohibition as applied to most corporations and unions.