GOP election night event pushes campaign finance envelope

Campaign finance experts said the two main Republican campaign committees are breaking new ground -- and treading close to the legal line -- in soliciting corporate contributions to help throw an election night party.

The lobbying and law firm Akin Gump, together with the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, are circulating the solicitation, asking between $2,500 and $10,000 for levels of sponsorship of the event at the posh rooftop bar at the W Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The event seeks "underwriters" rather than contributors, and the solicitation reads at the bottom: "This is not a fundraising event. This reception is being held in compliance with applicable federal ethics rules."

An Akin Gump spokeswoman, Kathryn Holmes Johnson, stressed that the event is not a "fundraiser," and that Republicans at the firm are seeking underwriters to "cover the costs of the event" rather than donors to the campaign committees.

Meredith McGehee, the Policy Director at the Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan group that favors finance regulation and is chaired by John McCain's campaign lawyer, said she's never seen an invitation to an event that listed both party committees and corporations as hosts.

Parties, she said, typically fall into the "widely attended event" exception to traditional gift rules, and legislators can attend them -- unlike, say, gratis concerts -- without running afoul of ethics rules.

"Because of the soft money limits and because there are party committees involved, parties should have an abundance of caution in ensuring they comply with the law, and they seem to have found a clever lawyer who figured out this is permissible because it’s not a fundraiser," said McGehee. "It’s a little too cute by half."

Another prominent campaign finance lawyer unconnected to the event asked not to be quoted by name, but emailed: "The NRSC and NRCC are raising money to pay for this event. That sounds like contributions to me and soft money is illegal."

But McGehee said the Federal Elections Commission would be unlikely to attempt to enforce anything in this gray area, and this may simply be a pioneering new loophole in the Swiss cheese-like regulatory regime.

And NRSC Communications Director Brian Walsh defended the committee's role.

"The NRSC is not soliciting funds or in any way raising money for this event. We’ve simply paid our allocable share to co-host an election night event and celebrate what we hope to be a great night for Republicans," he said. "This is not only much ado about nothing but the irony is that if anyone from the NRSC attended without paying, these same quasi-campaign finance lobbyists would likely find a way to attack us for that too."