FACT Seeks FEC Investigation of Theresa Greenfield (D-IA) for Coordinated Illegal Ads with Senate Majority PAC
Washington, D.C.—March 9, 2020— The non-partisan ethics watchdog, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), today, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against U.S. Senate candidate Theresa Greenfield, her campaign committee, Theresa Greenfield for Iowa, and the super PAC, Senate Majority PAC (SMP) for violating the Federal Election Campaign Act.
According to FACT, in February 2020, Theresa Greenfield for Iowa updated its website, using the precise format to provide information for an advertisement along with campaign video to be used in it. Just weeks later, Senate Majority PAC released an advertisement containing the information and video from Greenfield’s campaign, reportedly spending over $1 million on distribution.
FACT maintains that such coordination between a Senate candidate and super PAC for the purpose of running advertisements is a violation of federal law.
Furthermore, Senate Majority PAC is prohibited from republishing campaign materials, including photographs and video from a campaign committee, as the action would constitute an illegal in-kind contribution to the committee and respective candidate.
“We have recently seen many candidates use this exact same method to apparently communicate with super PACs and other outside groups,” said Kendra Arnold, Executive Director of FACT. “At this point it is a clear pattern, and Greenfield is following in the footsteps of several other candidates. The FEC must hold all candidates accountable when they use this known method to ‘request’ ads and provide campaign materials for super PACs to republish,” added Arnold.
A full copy of the complaint can be found here.
FACT is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting accountability, ethics, and transparency in government and civic arenas. For more on FACT, visit: www.factdc.org
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