Page Comparison

FEC = Federal Election Commission

The FEC regulates the donations that the DPCA relies upon as well as the political activities of the DPCA including coordination (or the legally mandated lack thereof) with candidates, political action committees, and other parts of the Democratic Party such as state parties.

As Stanley wrote:

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) defines itself as the independent regulatory agency charged with administering and enforcing the federal campaign finance law. The FEC has jurisdiction over the financing of campaigns for the U.S. House, Senate, Presidency and the Vice Presidency.

In 1975, Congress created the

FEC

to administer and enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA)

– the statute that governs the financing of federal elections. The duties of the FEC

are to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections.

In sum, the FEC enforces campaign finance rules. Each political party and federal candidate must register with the FEC and submit monthly reports. These reports list the money received and spent during the previous month.

According to FECA, each donor of over $200/year must be listed with his/her address. Since foreign nationals (except green card holders) are prohibited from contributing to federal campaigns, Democrats Abroad collects donor information on each donor regardless of amount due to the overseas context in which it operates. Each registered party must conform to FEC limits on the amount any individual can contribute to a party in a calendar year (currently

$41,

300 in

2023 and

2024).

Violation of campaign finance law can lead to heavy fines and even prison sentences.

Country Committees are constituent units of Democrats Abroad as defined by the DA Charter. We use the term so often that "CC" has become a very common acronym. Members of DA that don't live in countries served by CCs are served directly by their Regional Vice Chair (RVC).

While Democrats Abroad is one of the 57 states of the Democratic Party, that is not the case to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). In Advisory Opinion1976-112, the FEC explicitly denied state party classification to Democrats Abroad. Rather, Democrats Abroad is considered a subordinate of the Democratic National Committee and is obligated to follow national party committee FEC rules, not state.

What does this mean, and specifically, what does this mean for country committees?

Democrats Abroad is registered with the FEC and files monthly on behalf of the whole organization including the country committees. But that does require coordination between the International Treasurer and your country committee:

The simplest way to collect donations for Democrats Abroad and/or your country committee is through the website. All required donor information is collected when donors give. This information is reported to the FEC.

Country committees may also collect cash donations locally and transfer these donations via Western Union to the Democrats Abroad bank account within 10 days. Country committees must manually collect donor information by using the Democrats Abroad Donor Form and relay this to the International Treasurer also within 10 days for FEC reporting. Note: monies collected on behalf of the party should never enter a personal bank account; this is what is known as commingling and is illegal.

By completing either the digital or paper form of the Democrats Abroad Donor Form, the donor verifies that they are an eligible donor, have not exceeded yearly donor limits, and consent to their information being reported to the FEC.

Donors may donate to Democrats Abroad Global at http://democratsabroad.org/donate . Donors may donate to a specific country committee by clicking on the country page and navigating to the donate tab. Alternatively, they can use the URL democratsabroad.org/donate_(CC ISO code) – http://democratsabroad.org/donate_UK for the United Kingdom, for example.

Since DA is a subordinate committee of the DNC, individuals may only donate up to $41,300 (2023-2024) to a Democrats Abroad country committee, Democrats Abroad, and the DNC in a single year.

[Note added in 2017: CCs may not accept donations from corporations of any kind, whether American or not.]

Country committee should raise and spend as much as they can to promote our mission as Democrats Abroad – getting Democrats elected! Country committee Treasurers can visit democratsabroad.org/reimbursement to request forward payments to a vendor or reimbursements for monies spent. Vendor and sales information is also reported to the FEC.

Country committee Chairs and Treasurers can view their country committee balances through their CC dashboard. Contact the International Treasurer and Executive Director to manage access.