Daily Beast: Adam Schiff Just Made It Easier For Politicians to Make Money

Daily Beast: Adam Schiff Just Made It Easier For Politicians to Make Money

Paul S. Ryan, vice president of litigation at campaign reform advocacy group Common Cause, said that the decision is in line with years of FEC rulemaking, and “strikes the right balance.” “The FEC’s opinion in this matter seems consistent with its handling of similar matters over the past decade-plus,” Ryan told The Daily Beast. Ryan noted that the value of a campaign’s donor list, already sky-high, may certainly appear heightened in the Schiff scenario, when the candidate stands to benefit from his own custom data. But, he said, “at the end of the day the FEC needs to draw lines in order to facilitate consistent administration of the law. And I think they’ve done an acceptable job of doing so in the context of donor lists.”

In a decision that could pad the wallets of other elected officials in the future, the Federal Election Commission has given Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) the green light to promote his new book by renting his extensive campaign email list to his own publisher.

Schiff pitched the FEC on the matter in October—about a week after he published his first full-length book, Midnight In Washington—and the commissioners issued their opinions late last month. The announcement appeared in an FEC bulletin released Monday.

The decision allows Schiff’s publisher, Random House, to pay his campaign for access to email addresses collected over the course of the five-term Democrat’s time in office. Random House will use that list to target promotional materials to a narrowly tailored fan base, which, of course, includes supporters known to have previously given Schiff money.

The decision also navigates the collision of two big-ticket fundraising draws: candidate book sales and email list rental. Both practices have attracted criticism, and can carry serious legal risks if not handled cleanly.

While earlier FEC advisory opinions have allowed candidates who are hawking books to personally rent lists from their own campaign at fair market value, the regulator had not taken up the question of the publisher renting directly from the campaign. The arrangement is fair, the commissioners said, as long as “no Committee resources or personnel would be used to promote the book,” and the rental price is fair market value.

Paul S. Ryan, vice president of litigation at campaign reform advocacy group Common Cause, said that the decision is in line with years of FEC rulemaking, and “strikes the right balance.”

“The FEC’s opinion in this matter seems consistent with its handling of similar matters over the past decade-plus,” Ryan told The Daily Beast.

Ryan noted that the value of a campaign’s donor list, already sky-high, may certainly appear heightened in the Schiff scenario, when the candidate stands to benefit from his own custom data. But, he said, “at the end of the day the FEC needs to draw lines in order to facilitate consistent administration of the law. And I think they’ve done an acceptable job of doing so in the context of donor lists.”