FEC Refusal to Scrutinize Claims of Super PAC Violations Upheld

The Federal Election Commission sufficiently explained its decision not to investigate five complaints of allegedly unlawful Super PAC donations, the D.C. Circuit said Friday.

The FEC’s concern that regulated individuals lacked notice of how Citizens United affected the requirements and prohibitions of the Federal Election Campaign Act was rational when the Commission dismissed the complaints in February 2016, the court said in a per curiam opinion.

The Commission’s additional explanation—that it didn’t have controlling judicial precedent for the updated interpretation of FECA’s “straw donor” provisions that would have guided its investigation and enforcement decisions—also satisfied the U.S. Court of Appeals ...