Deep-Sixing 527s

Jacob Sullum | September 21, 2005

This week the Federal Election Commission sued the Club for Growth, arguing that the group, which supports low taxes and smaller government, should have registered as a political committee and abided by contribution limits during the last election cycle, when it raised $8.5 million through its 527 spinoff. The FEC, which is responding to a complaint from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, suggests that the club's leaders should consider themselves lucky that the commission did not decide to treat it as a corporation, in which case its political speech would have been entirely illegal.

If the FEC's latest interpretation of the law is upheld, it looks like the 527 "loophole" will be closed. And then politics will be clean, the people's faith in government will be restored, and John McCain will be vindicated--unless people who take an interest in politics find some other sneaky way to criticize public officials without running afoul of the government's speech regulations.