What can a super PAC do with a phone program as an independent expenditure, and what can it not coordinate?

What makes a phone program independent

The FEC's coordinated communication test has three parts: who paid, what the communication says and when, and how it was made. A phone program paid for by a super PAC that names a candidate and urges a vote is a public communication, and if the conduct standard is met, it is coordinated and therefore a contribution, which a super PAC may not make. The rules are at 11 CFR 109.21. This page explains how they land on a phone program; the committee's counsel decides.

• Requests or suggestions: the campaign asked for the program or suggested it.
• Material involvement: the campaign had a hand in the script, the universe, the timing or the choice of vendor.
• Substantial discussion: the campaign shared its plans, projects, activities or needs with the super PAC or the vendor, and that information was material to the program.
• Common vendor and former employee conduct: the vendor, or a person, used information from work for the campaign within the previous 120 days in making the program.

What a compliant program looks like in practice

A super PAC phone program stays independent by being built entirely from public information and the super PAC's own decisions.

• The script is written for the super PAC from public positions, votes and statements, not from the campaign's message guidance.
• The universe is built from the voter file and public data the super PAC or its vendor licenses, not a list supplied by the campaign.
• The caller ID and voicemail identify the super PAC, and the disclaimer says who paid for the call and that it is not authorized by any candidate.
• The vendor is walled off from the campaign's work, or a different vendor is used. The Political Group runs independent programs on separate teams with a written firewall and does not carry a campaign's plans across.

Reporting and the clock

Independent expenditures go on Schedule E of the super PAC's Form 3X with the candidate supported or opposed, the amount, the date of dissemination and the payee. Aggregate spending of $10,000 or more for or against one candidate in a calendar year triggers a 48-hour report for that and each subsequent $10,000, filed within 48 hours of dissemination. From the 20th day before an election through the day before it, the threshold drops to $1,000 and the deadline to 24 hours. The PAC spend tracker on this site reads exactly those filings every week.

The dashboard question

A super PAC gets the same live dashboard for its program that a campaign would: dials, conversations, voter identification, issues, momentum. What it cannot do is hand that dashboard to the campaign, since sharing the program's results with the candidate is the kind of substantial discussion that risks the independence of the next program. The results inform the super PAC's own next decision, which is the point.

The disclaimer on the call

An independent expenditure phone program is a public communication and carries the same disclaimer obligations as a mailer or an ad. A live call must state who paid for it and that it was not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee, and a prerecorded message must do the same at the start or the end. In practice the script opens with the super PAC's name and closes with the paid-for line, and the caller ID shows the super PAC. This is also what keeps the program honest with the voter: they know who is calling and why.

Hybrid PACs and party committees

A hybrid PAC, one with a non-contribution account alongside its regular account, runs independent expenditures from the non-contribution account under the same rules as a super PAC and coordinated programs from the regular account under contribution limits. The two must be paid from the right account and reported on the right schedule. Party committees may also make independent expenditures, but the FEC treats coordination between a party committee and its own candidates as the norm, so a party independent expenditure requires a real separation inside the committee. Most party voter contact is run as coordinated party expenditure instead, on Schedule F.