Lessig’s group charged with breaking campaign laws

Eric Owens of the Daily Caller reports on complaints surrounding the activity of a “super PAC” tied to campaign finance reform advocate Lawrence Lessig.

Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig, a co-founder and the face of Mayday PAC, launched the super PAC in the run-up to the most recent election season and raised over $10 million in an attempt to prevent all super PACs — except, of course, his — from influencing elections.

“Yes, we want to spend big money to end the influence of big money,” Lessig said in a promotional YouTube video in May. “Ironic, I get it, but embrace the irony.”

Lessig and his super PAC failed spectacularly — spending 97 percent of its heap of cash on losing candidates.

But embrace this irony: the Center for Competitive Politics, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting free speech, has filed a complaint against Lessig’s Mayday PAC claiming that the organization dedicated to stricter campaign finance laws blatantly broke already-existing federal election law.

According to the complaint, Mayday PAC — the self-proclaimed “SuperPAC to end all SuperPACs” — made considerable ad buys in New Hampshire.

The complaint identifies at least a dozen Mayday PAC radio ads, television ads and mail solicitations supporting candidates for Congress.

“Many of these communications clearly and consistently failed to satisfy disclaimer requirements mandated by the Federal Election Campaign Act, as amended, and Federal Election Commission regulations,” explained David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics.

At least eight radio advertisements neglected to announce that Mayday PAC was responsible for them, according to the complaint. Also, the complaint states, Mayday PAC failed to include various disclaimers required under federal law, and five ads failed to include mandatory information about who spent to run the ads.

“Mayday PAC also distributed mail pieces in Arizona that included non-compliant disclaimers,” Keating added. …

… “Campaign finance laws are too complex, and now we have proof,” Keating said in an email to The Daily Caller. “If a Harvard law professor can’t figure it out, what hope is there for the average person who wants to form a political group?”