In its Motion, CVFC PAC challenged the legality of the FEC's fines against the PAC for the late filing of the 2010 October Quarterly Report, the Pre-General Report, and Post-General Report, and imposing fines totaling $8,690. Instead, CVFC PAC argued that the former treasurer knowingly, willfully, and/or recklessly failed to file the reports on time, and then resigned, leaving the PAC to expend substantial time and resources to recreate the PACs records. As such, the former treasurer should be held solely liable based on clear law, numerous FEC regulations, policy statements, and directives holding treasurers personally liable in such situations. The FEC, arguing that PACs generally pay their Treasurer's fines, is seeking to avoid clear law, creating an open invitation to unprecedented campaign finance fraud.
In addition, CVFC PAC argued that the FEC utterly failed to follow the law and provide Due Process to the PAC, from failing to actually cast the minimum four affirmative votes required by law to initiate the enforcement proceeding to failing to grant a hearing for the PAC
"If the Court upholds the Commission's ruling, it would allow PAC and campaign treasurers to recklessly ignore their legal duties, engage in all manner of bad acts, and then jump ship, saddling the committee with substantial fines. The law unequivocally places responsibility on Treasurers precisely to prevent that," said Dan Backer, counsel for CVFC PAC. Backer, founder of DB Capitol Strategies, teamed up with noted Washington, D.C. lawyer Paul D. Kamenar, an experienced constitutional and administrative law attorney, Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and former Senior Executive Counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation. The FEC is expected to reply to CVFC PAC's motion by July 10, 2012.
