representation and electoral systems - American Political Science ...

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allocated by employee, state, zip code, date and election, and by candidate’s
disbursements classified by purpose, payee, and date. The site also will provide
information detailing the state-by state spending of presidential candidates who accept
public funding for primary elections.
Open meetings and public hearings held by the commission are available as
audio recording via the web site. The audio files, and directions on how to subscribe to
the podcasts are available under Audio Recordings through the Commission Meetings tab
at http://sss.fec.gov. The audio files are divided into tracks corresponding to each portion
of the agenda for ease of use. To listen to the open meeting without subscribing to the
podcsts, click the icon next to each agenda item. The service is free, but a person
interested in listening to podcasts must download the appropriate software listed on the
web site. Podcast subscribers automatically will receive the files as soon as they become
available—typically a day or two after the meeting.
An updated and expanded Enforcement Query System (EQS), a web-based
search tool, allows users to find and examine public documents regarding closed
Commission enforcement matters. Using current scanning, optical character recognition
and text search technologies, the system permits intuitive and flexible searches of case
documents and other materials. Users can search for specific words or phrases from the
text of all public case documents. Currently, EQS contains complete public case files for
all matters under review (MURs) closed since January 1, 1999.
Public Funding: The Democratic and Republican Parties each received
$16,356,000 from the United States Treasury for planning and conducting their
respective 2008 Presidential nominating Conventions. The Presidential Election
Campaign Fund Act permits all eligible national committees of major and minor parties
to receive public funds to pay the official costs of their Presidential nominating
conventions.. Each major party convention committee is entitled to receive $4 million
plus an adjustment for inflation since 1974 (26 U.S.C.§9008(b)(1), 11 CFR 9008.4(a).
The Commission on August 28, 2007, certified Senator John McCain of Arizona
as the first presidential candidate eligible to receive matching public funds.. Although he
requested the funds on August 10 th , he has not decided whether he will accept the funds.
The public funding portion of Presidential elections if financed by the Presidential
Election Campaign Fund which receives funds through dollars voluntarily “checked off”
by taxpayers on federal income tax forms.
The 2008 Democratic National Convention Committee, Incorporated, will hold its
convention in Denver, Colorado, August 25-28, 2008. The Committee on Arrangements
for the 2008 Republican National Convention will have its convention in Minneapolis-
Saint Paul, Minnesota, September 1-4, 2008.
Rule Making: The Commission on July 12, 2007, approved a Notice of
Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) seeking public comment on propose rules to add two
additional permissible uses of campaign funds to the regulations’ current list of
permissible uses of such funds. Congress in the Consolidated Appropriations act of 2005
amended the provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act governing permissible
uses of such funds and the NPRM proposes to conform the Commission’s regulations to
the Act. The amendment allows donations to nonfederal candidates and “any other
lawful purpose.” The text of the NPRM is available in the Federal Register (72 CFR