FEC Completes Action on Three Enforcement Cases

For Immediate Release
July 24, 2006

Contact:

Kelly Huff
Bob Biersack
Ian Stirton
George Smaragdis

FEC COMPLETES ACTION ON THREE ENFORCEMENT CASES

WASHINGTON --The Federal Election Commission has recently made public its final action on three matters previously under review (MURs). In MUR 5729, the American Society of Anesthesiologists PAC agreed to pay a $31,000 conciliation agreement for failing to file 3 48-hour independent expenditure reports. In MUR 5689, the Commission found reason to believe that IBEW Local 429 violated the law by failing to timely transmit contributions as a collecting agent to their parent organization, but took no further action and sent an admonishment letter. And the Commission used its prosecutorial discretion to dismiss MUR 5713 relating to the Ancient Order of the Hibernians and Francis V. Foley. This release contains only disposition information.

1.	MUR 5729

	RESPONDENTS:	American Society of Anesthesiologists PAC, Richard Barwacz, treasurer
	COMPLAINANT:	FEC Initiated (RAD)
	SUBJECT:	Failure to file 48-hour reports
	DISPOSITION:	Conciliation Agreement: $31,000 civil penalty* This matter was generated by the FEC Reports Analysis Division (RAD) referral to the General Counsel’s Office for violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act. The RAD staff discovered the respondents violated the law by failing to file three 48-hour reports relating to three independent expenditures which aggregated $10,000 or more. The Commission conciliated with the Respondents and closed the file.
	DOCUMENTS ON PUBLIC RECORD:	Documents from this matter are available from the Commission’s web site at http://www.fec.gov by entering 5729 under case number in the Enforcement Query System. They are also available in the FEC’s Public Records Office at 999 E St. NW in Washington.

2.	MUR 5689

	RESPONDENT:	(a) International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 429 (b) International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 429 C.O.P.E. Fund
	COMPLAINANT:	Jimmy Thompson
	SUBJECT:	Failure to register and report; failure to forward contributions in a timely manner
	DISPOSITION:	(a-b) No reason to believe* [re: failure to register and report] Reason to believe, but took no further action* [re: failure to forward contributions in a timely manner] Sent admonishment letter. The complaint alleged that the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local Union 429 (IBEW Local 429) has collected contributions for the IBEW Local Union 429 COPE Fund (IBEW Local 429 Fund) and made contributions to the IBEW COPE, an FEC-registered political committee without registering with the FEC and reporting as a PAC. Local 429 maintained that it is not a political committee and does not sponsor a SSF, but it is a collecting agent for the SSF connected to its parent union, IBEW COPE. Local 429 acknowledged the inaccurate name of the SSF on complainant’s payroll deduction authorization cards. The Commission found no reason to believe that IBEW Local 429 or the IBEW Local 429 Fund violated the law by failing to register and report, because IBEW Local 429 appeared to be a permissible collecting agent and there is no information to suggest that the Fund was used for any other purpose. The complainant also alleged that there was a disparity between the contributions received by Local 429 and the transfers made to the IBEW COPE Fund from 2000 through 2002. Information from 2000, 2001 and 2002 suggest that Local 429 did not timely transfer contributions pursuant to the Commission’s regulations. Given statute of limitations considerations, and in view of the fact that IBEW Local 429 has shown significant improvement in compliance transmitting contributions, the Commission found reason to believe that IBEW Local 429 and IBEW Local Fund violated the law by failing to timely transfer contributions, but took no further action and sent an admonishment letter.
	DOCUMENTS ON PUBLIC RECORD:	Documents from this matter are available from the Commission’s web site at http://www.fec.gov by entering 5689 under case number in the Enforcement Query System. They are also available in the FEC’s Public Records Office at 999 E St. NW in Washington.

DISMISSED -Low Rated

3.	MUR 5713

	RESPONDENTS:	(a) Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) Division 16 (b) Francis (Bud) V. Foley
	COMPLAINANT:	John O’Gorman
	SUBJECT:	Contributions in the name of another The Complaint alleged that the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), a tax-exempt organization, authorized one of its members, to purchase $500 in tickets for members and their families to attend a March 13, 2001 fundraiser for Congressman Martin Meehan. The respondent noted that when he discovered that AOH could not purchased tickets due to its “non profit” status, he decided to purchase tickets out of his personal funds. The Commission exercised its prosecutorial discretion and dismissed the matter. *The Enforcement Priority System (EPS) rates all incoming cases against objective criteria to determine whether they warrant use of the Commission’s limited resources. Cases dismissed under EPS fall into two categories: low rated and stale cases. Low rated cases are those that do no warrant use of the Commission’s resources to pursue because of their lower significance relative to other pending matters.
	DOCUMENTS ON PUBLIC RECORD:	Documents from this matter are available from the Commission’s web site at http://www.fec.gov by entering 5713 under case number in the Enforcement Query System. They are also available in the FEC’s Public Records Office at 999 E St. NW in Washington.

There are four administrative stages to the FEC enforcement process:

1. Receipt of proper complaint	3. “Probable cause” stage
2. “Reason to believe” stage	4. Conciliation stage

It requires the votes of at least four of the six Commissioners to take any action. The FEC can close a case at any point after reviewing a complaint. If a violation is found and conciliation cannot be reached, then the FEC can institute a civil court action against a respondent.

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