76-08-A3

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Campaign Law Violated?

Transcript Recently, the National Right to Work Committee presented evidence to the Federal Election Commission which it says shows that the AFL-CIO and its allegedly non-partisan Committee on Political Education (COPE) engaged in "massive violations" of the Federal Election Campaign Act during the 1976 campaign. In a complaint filed with the Commission, the Right to Work Committee said that the labor organizations illegally spent millions of dollars of union treasury funds on partisan registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns. The Committee's complaint said, QUOTE -- "By various public accounts, the AFL-CIO and COPE spent in excess of 3 million dollars on voter registration campaigns, get-out-the-vote drives, and candidate-oriented communications aimed at their members." --UNQUOTE. For such expenditures to be legal, they must, under the law, be non-partisan. The Right to Work Committee said in its complaint that the word "non-partisan" is more than superficial in its meaning. Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary defines "non-partisan" as "free from party affiliation, bias, or designation". Thus, to determine whether a union's registration and get-out-the-vote activities should be exempt, ... it is important to determine whether they were "non-partisan" or not. The Right to Work Committee says, "Not only were the AFL-CIO's activities and those of COPE in this area not "non-partisan", and hence violative of ... (the law), but they were coordinated with the Carter presidential campaign and hence, by the law's standards, in-kind contributions rather than independent expenditures. Thus, such expenditures made by the AFL-CIO itself ... are clear violations of the law." " ... If the law is to be applied equally and fairly the mere size and seriousness of these abuses mandate the Commission's priority attention. If this does not occur I know that ... millions of individuals ... will be left with one unmistakable conclusion: the very size and political power of this special interest group exempts it from the law." -- UNQUOTE. The Right to Work Committee cited some examples of its allegation that the AFL-CIO and COPE were engaged in partisan election campaigning. They contended that Mary Zon, the COPE research director, was working three days a week on the Carter campaign payroll as a liaison between the campaign and organized labor. And that Alexander Barkan, national director of COPE, served simultaneously on the Democratic National Committee's 42-member campaign steering committee. The Right to Work Committee also charged that between March 1975 and June 1976, some $600,000 was transferred from the AFL-CIO's general treasury to the COPE education fund. During this same period of time, some $385,000 was diverted from the education fund to COPE's political contributions committee. With all the recent sound-and-fury over election reform, the Federal Election Commission has a responsibility to investigate this complaint. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 76-08-A3 Production Date 01/19/1977 Book/Page Online PDF Audio Youtube? No
		Added Notes FEC July 1977 Record, with details of the allegations. FEC August 1978 Record, showing a $10,000 civil penalty against the AFL-CIO for the violations.