FEC Eyes Moves to Curb Foreign Influence

Robert Lenhard's blog post on Covington's Inside Political Law blog is referenced in a Bloomberg BNA article regarding the FEC's focus on foreign influence in U.S. elections. According to Lenhard, the FEC appeared to be “headed to yet another deadlock” on the foreign influence issue because of “a fundamental disagreement among the commissioners about how serious the problem is.” Another factor, Lehard said, was “longstanding animosity between the commissioners [that] makes building consensus difficult.” Lenhard also wrote, however, that consensus among the commissioners was possible around a narrow plan based on clarifying existing foreign-money rules and requiring new compliance certifications regarding donors to super political action committees and organizations spending money in campaigns.