SMP Files Complaints With FEC Over Senate Republicans Campaign Finance Violations

Washington, D.C. — Senate Majority PAC filed four complaints with the Federal Election Commission Thursday evening detailing how campaigns for Republican senatorial candidates and the National Republican Senate Committee improperly used certain campaign funds to broadcast political ads, misused and ignored statute on excessive political contributions, and secured television ads at unlawfully low rates during the 2024 cycle.

The complaints, which center on improper use of so-called ‘legal and building’ funds, misuse of hybrid advertising and joint fundraising agreements, and irregular and unequal discounts on ad rates, describe how Senate Republicans exploited campaign finance loopholes to their benefit to lower the costs of television ads in contested battleground states in the critical closing weeks of the 2024 election cycle.

“We cannot stand back while Republicans are breaking the law and exploiting campaign finance rules for their own benefit. The FEC should have addressed these major loopholes and indiscretions years ago, but Senate Majority PAC and Democrats will continue to exert maximum pressure to ensure that no entity is bending the rules so purposefully as to shatter them,” said Senate Majority PAC President JB Poersch. “We are prepared to escalate these complaints further if the FEC fails to act.”

One complaint against the NRSC and the Kari Lake for Senate, Hogan for Maryland Inc., Nella for Senate, and Sam Brown for Nevada campaigns outlines how the NRSC paid for television advertisements promoting the election of Republican candidates in coordination with those candidates without the NRSC’s advertising costs counting as contributions or coordinated expenditures – leading to reporting violations and excessive contributions from the Republican campaign arm to the Senate candidates against Supreme Court interpretations of campaign finance law. In doing so, the NRSC may have violated a core restriction in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. Read the complaint.

The complaint involving the NRSC, the Michigan Victory Committee, Rogers for Senate, the Nevada Victory Committee, Sam Brown for Nevada, the Wisconsin Victory Committee, and Hovde for Wisconsin details how, during the 2024 election, the NRSC seemingly, and unilaterally, decided to, for the first time, misuse joint fundraising agreements to finance millions of dollars in television advertising on behalf of Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate without treating the costs of the advertising as a contribution. Read the full complaint.

The third complaint, solely naming the NRSC, argues the campaign committee used funding that FECA created to be “separate, segregated” accounts to run $4.8 million in de facto candidate ads. The law allows campaign committees to solicit funding for so-called “legal and building funds” with significantly higher limits, but the funds can only be directed toward party headquarters buildings and legal proceedings. Still, 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 intent of the statute. Read the full complaint.

The final complaint 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 receive the lower rate. Despite this, Sarkes Tarzian provided the lower unit rate to the Nevada Victory Committee for television advertising that raised money for a joint fundraising committee that was using almost no funds from the Republican candidate. Read the full complaint.

“The Commission should immediately investigate these complaints, all of which detail how Senate Republicans used every trick and loophole they could find to circumvent campaign finance laws for failing campaigns,” said Poersch.

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