Senate Majority PAC Sues FEC for Inaction on Republican Campaign Finance Violations

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority PAC filed two lawsuits against the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, accusing the agency of taking no action on complaints detailing how campaigns for Republican senatorial candidates and the National Republican Senate Committee improperly used certain campaign funds to broadcast political ads and secured television ads at unlawfully low rates.

The new lawsuits were filed in the United States District Court – District of Columbia.

In August, SMP first filed two complaints centered on the so-called ‘building and legal fund’ ads and the use of unlawfully low rates. In the five months since, the FEC has failed to take any action on the complaints, prompting the new lawsuits.

“Republicans are breaking the law in plain sight and daring regulators to stop them,” said Senate Majority PAC Spokesperson Lauren French. “The FEC’s failure to close obvious loopholes has enabled this abuse, but Senate Majority PAC and Democrats will not let it continue unchecked.”

The first suit argues the NRSC used funding from “separate, segregated” accounts to run $4.8 million in de facto candidate ads in 2024. The law allows campaign committees to solicit funding for so-called “legal and building funds” with significantly higher limits, but those funds may be directed only to party headquarters buildings and legal proceedings. As recently as Monday, the Cornyn Victory Fund was running advertisements that are de facto candidate ads but raising for a separate account. Last cycle, the NRSC ran ads on behalf of Sam Brown, Mike Rogers, and Eric Hovde using these funds that were materially indistinguishable from candidate ads, in violation of the statute’s intent. Read the full complaint.

The second suit documents how the Nevada Victory Committee, the NRSC, Sam Brown for Nevada, and Sarkes Tarzian Inc. d/b/a KTVN Channel 2 circumvented the Communications Act of 1934 to ensure lower unit rates were improperly gifted to the Victory Committee. Current law requires broadcast stations to provide a discount to a “legally qualified candidate” on the cost of television advertising at the “lowest unit charge,” but this rate can only apply to candidate campaigns. Other political committees are not entitled to the lower rate.

Despite this, Sarkes Tarzian offered the Nevada Victory Committee a lower unit rate for television advertising, raising money for a joint fundraising committee that used almost no funds from the Republican candidate. Read the full complaint.