Press Release
Wednesday August 15, 2001
Contact: James Bopp, Jr., General Counsel
Phone 812/232-2434; Fax 812/235-3685
jboppjr@abcs.com,

Amicus Brief - click here for brief

In yet another case demonstrating that "politics makes strange bedfellows," the James Madison Center for Free Speech, a conservative public interest organization that defends the rights of citizens to participate in our democracy, has filed an Amicus Curiae Brief in support of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (‘AFL-CIO") and DNC Services Corporation/Democratic National Committee ("DNC") in their suit against the Federal Election Commission ("FEC") over release of documents obtained in an FEC investigation.

The AFL-CIO and DNC, subjects of a newly closed investigation by the FEC, have asked the federal district court in D.C. to enjoin the FEC from releasing confidential information obtained by the FEC from the AFL-CIO and DNC during its now closed investigation of their 1996 election activity. On July 17, 2001, the district court granted a preliminary injunction, prohibiting the FEC from releasing the documents, and is now considering whether to make the injunction permanent.

At the heart of the matter is whether the FEC, after an investigation is closed, can lawfully release to the public all the information it has obtained during the investigation. The James Madison Center for Free Speech argued, in its brief, that the First Amendment rights of free speech and association prohibits the FEC from "automatically releasing, without justification, investigatory information" just because it has that information in its files.

"The FEC conducts hundreds of investigations each year." stated James Bopp, Jr., General Counsel for the Madison Center. "These FEC investigations, by their nature, intrude into matters at the heart of the First Amendment by requiring organizations and individuals to divulge to the government confidential information about their political and lobbying strategy. The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that such government investigations can chill and undermine these First Amendment activities. But for the FEC to unlawfully release confidential information to the public makes a bad situation intolerable," added Bopp.

The Madison Center brief noted that the FEC’s automatic release of investigatory documents provides an incentive to political opponents to file a FEC complaint which will achieve the dual purpose of "chilling" their competitor’s speech and association and of then publicly revealing their competitor’s political and legislative strategy so that it can be exploited to their political opponent’s advantage.

"This case is particularly egregious since both the AFL-CIO and the DNC were found by the FEC to have not violated federal election law," said Bopp. "The policy of the FEC to punish such groups by the public release of confidential information not only undermines them, but jeopardizes the First Amendment freedoms of all groups, left and right, that are subject to such investigations. We have asked the federal court to put a stop to the FEC’s automatic release of investigatory documents."