[Lnc-business] Suing the FEC...again

[Nicholas Sarwark]

All,

In a previous LNC term, the LNC sued the Federal Elections Commission
to challenge the annual contribution limit to a political party vis a
vis a bequest that was larger than the limit.  The court found that
the issue was moot and unlikely to be repeated.

We have received another bequest that exceeds the annual contribution
limit, preventing the LNC from taking the entire bequest in a single
year.  This is the same factual scenario that we previously sued the
FEC under, proving them wrong about the unlikely to be repeated part.

Our counsel for the last suit, Alan Gura, has offered to sue regarding
this bequest.  It would be a very limited litigation, since the facts
were already hashed out in the last litigation before the D.C.
District Court.  He would plan to ask the D.C. Circuit to rule on the
previous record, perhaps with very brief supplemental briefing to
describe the current bequest.

Cost would be $5,000/year while the case is pending plus any actual
filing fees, etc.  I would imagine that the case would be resolved
within between 1-2 years of filing.  The amount of the bequest is
larger than the cost of the suit and if we don't sue, we would have to
space the bequest out over a term of years (and potentially do so
again the next time someone leaves the LNC money in excess of the
annual limit).

I intend to submit a mail ballot to authorize this lawsuit sometime
later this week, but wanted to see if there were any questions,
discussion, or concerns?

-Nick