Obama wants pro-Clinton group investigated

Barack Obama's presidential campaign wants federal regulators to investigate fellow Democrats who are backing Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy, taking intraparty discord to a new level of confrontation.

Obama's campaign lawyer, Robert Bauer, filed a complaint Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, accusing the pro-Clinton American Leadership Project of violating campaign finance laws by running ads against Obama. The group is spending $920,000 for an ad in Indiana questioning Obama's economic policies.

The group is largely financed by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and is run by Democratic operatives, many of them based in California and who have past connections to Clinton or her husband. Its organizers say they are abiding by the law and a 2007 Supreme Court ruling.

Bauer, in his complaint and in a teleconference with reporters, likened the group to organizations that had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for ad campaigns in the 2004 presidential election. Among them was the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which attacked Democrat John Kerry's service in Vietnam and his subsequent anti-war stance.

"This organization is a Swift Boat wannabe and it's violating the law in exactly the same way," Bauer said.

The Supreme Court in 2007 opened the door for organizations to air issue ads that mention political candidates, as long as they did not explicitly call for their election or defeat. The FEC followed up with a regulation that gave outside groups more latitude to run ads during elections.

"We have strictly and carefully adhered to every governing law and regulation, including the content of our communications and our full and timely disclosures," said ALP Chairman Jason Kinney, a California Democratic strategist.

Bauer said the Supreme Court decision has been a "source of a great deal of confusion - the confusion that this organization is trying to take advantage of."

Complicating matters is the FEC's lack of a quorum to act on any investigation or regulatory matter. The six-member commission has four vacancies. Though the commissioners would be unable to act on such a complaint immediately, FEC investigations typically take more than a year to resolve. Bauer asked the FEC that if it is "unable to act expeditiously" it refer the case to the Justice Department.

The American Leadership Project has run nearly $2 million in ads, either supporting Clinton's positions on issues or criticizing Obama's stands. In Indiana this week, the group initially spent $700,000 for the ad, and it added $220,000 to the buy on Wednesday.

"Call Barack Obama and tell him to give Hoosiers a real plan to fix our economy," the ad states.

At issue is the complicated array of federal regulations governing who can say what and how during an election campaign. Candidates, party committees and political action committees, which may only accept restricted contributions, can run ads that call for the election or defeat of a candidates.

Groups that don't organize as political action committees can raise money in unlimited contributions from donors, but they cannot run ads that "expressly advocate" for or against a candidate.

These groups have organized either as nonprofit, tax exempt groups or as so-called 527 organizations, which are named after the section of the tax code that permits their existence.

The American Leadership Project is a 527 organization. Such groups cannot coordinate their activities with any campaign.

The FEC has defined "express advocacy" broadly, taking into account not just to the words in the commercials but also the circumstances of the ad and the fundraising associated with it.

In addition to AFSCME, other contributors to the group are donors who have given the maximum allowed to the Clinton campaign.

Lawyers for the ALP, in a statement issued Wednesday, said the group is operating independently and not coordinating its efforts with any candidate.

"Moreover, persons who have provided financial support to a presidential candidate are not prohibited by law from making donations to ALP, and if they do so, that fact alone does not constitute 'coordination' under the FEC rules," the statement said.