Unpacking Super PAC Tactics and Legal Challenges

OA1080 - As a weary nation watches the world's richest man try to buy a federal election in plain sight, we stop to consider the question which has so long plagued Elon Musk: There's gotta be a crime here, right? Somewhere?

There has been plenty of debate this week about the legality of Musk’s $1 million daily lottery for registered US voters in swing states, but there is something far more insidious going on in this story beyond the headlines. Matt explains how the Federal Elections Commission has recently taken the Supreme Court’s perfectly good joke way too far before we consider what the rapidly evolving rules around super PACs could mean for the future of fair elections in the United States. 

Finally, we drop a seasonal footnote to discuss how some Massachusetts 8th graders recently helped to close out a 332-year-old criminal case.

• “Judge Aileen Cannon, who tossed Trump's classified docs case, on list of proposed candidates for attorney general”  ABC News (10/22/2024)

• “Elon Musk’s Big Business and Conflicts of Interest With the U.S. Government” The New York Times (10/20/2024)

• “A Democrat, Siding With the G.O.P., Is Removing Limits on Political Cash at ‘Breathtaking’ Speed,” Shane Goldmacher  The New York Times (6/10/2024)

• The Illusion of Independence: How Unregulated Coordination is Undermining Our Democracy, and What Can Be Done to Stop It, The Campaign Legal Center (11/30/2023)

• FEC Advisory Opinion 2024-01 (3/20/2024)

• FEC Vice Chair Ellen Weintraub’s dissent from Advisory Opinion 2024-07 (addressing Lindsay Graham campaign’s question re: super PAC campaign fundraising coordination)

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