News Clips

Paul Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, said it's not unusual people like Yang get paid to speak in front of audiences, but they usually stop accepting payments once they decide to run for federal office. "Because receiving compensation for paid speaking raises questions under campaign finance laws regarding corporate contributions," Ryan said, "most candidates steer clear of these activities."

“The ‘PERMISSIBLE FUNDS’ memo entries indicates to the FEC that the committee understands the rules and that the contribution is permissible because the LLC contribution is attributed to an individual,” said Paul Seamus Ryan, a vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause. “An LLC with a single natural person member that does not elect to be taxed as a corporation is treated as an individual under campaign finance law — i.e., that LLC is permitted to contribute to candidates, party committees and JFC’s like Trump Victory, subject to the individual contribution limits,” he added.

“We are extremely pleased with this decision since it means that Indiana counties will have to follow federal law when maintaining their lists of registered voters and no Hoosier will be removed from the list without proper notice and a waiting period,” said Julia Vaughn, policy director of Indiana Common Cause. “Those safeguards are in the law for a reason and it is reassuring to know that Hoosier voters will be protected from unlawful purges in the future.”

The FEC “will now pretty much grind to a halt,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause. “This is a big deal that the FEC is now going to be without a quorum.”

“Nobody is spending $2.5 million out of the goodness of their hearts,” said David Vance, a spokesman for Common Cause, a nonprofit group that advocates for campaign finance reform. “That kind of money is spent to get the attention of legislators and to get results.”

On the other side of the political divide over Koch, Beth Rotman of the government watchdog group Common Cause said the Kochs and their network of like-minded wealthy donors “undermined so many important American values over the past several decades as part of the Kochs’ attempted corporate takeover of American politics.”