The 'Draft Elizabeth Warren' Movement Is About to Get Help From New Campaign Finance Rules
1/13/15

The FEC is preparing guidelines that would give draft groups more flexibility in how they raise money and on how they spend it.

January 13, 2015 The Federal Election Commission is poised to make life easier this week for the "draft Elizabeth Warren" movement and other groups hoping to coax candidates into election with a ready-made bundle of campaign cash.

An FEC panel is scheduled to vote Thursday on a series of draft guidelines that would give such groups more freedom in how they raise money and in how they spend that money later—including in instances where their candidate refuses to be drafted.

The current interpretation of the rules allows draft groups to raise funds for a specific prospective candidate, which would then be given to that candidate if he or she decides to run before the filing deadline for the race the draft group identified.

Under the guidelines expected to be approved Thursday, the groups will have more options on what to do if their candidate doesn't run. The rules would allow a draft group to promise would-be donors that if their preferred candidate doesn't enter the race, the money would then go to a second candidate. For example, they could say that if Warren doesn't run, the money would instead go to Sen. Bernie Sanders. The new rules would also give the groups more leeway to set deadlines for their candidates to enter the race.

While Ready for Warren and MoveOn are already raising money for the "Draft Warren" effort, the new FEC guidelines would give them more freedom to determine what happens to the money if Warren maintains she's not running—a concept that gained increasing importance after Tuesday following the release of a Fortune interview in which Warren stated yet again (and in the strongest terms yet) that she is not running for president in 2016. Warren's backers have used the first-term senator's verb tense—she's frequently said, "I am not running for president," not "I will not run for president"—as a sign of hope that she will reconsider.

Still, despite Warren's seemingly more definitive statement to Fortune, progressive groups don't see her comments as a sign of defeat. "Sen. Warren has been clear for years that she isn't planning on running," said a statement from MoveOn and Democracy for America. "If she were running, there wouldn't be a need for a draft effort."...

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/the-draft-elizabeth-warren-movement-is-about-to-get-help-from-new-campaign-finance-rules-20150113