FEC Says Indian Tribes Not Covered by $25,000 Annual Giving Limit

The BNA Money & Politics Report (5/20/00) wrote that an advisory opinion declaring that Indian tribes are exempt from a $25,000 annual limit on aggregate campaign contributions was approved May 11 by the Federal Election Commission.

The unanimous vote on an advisory opinion was requested by the Oneida Nation and was the first time the FEC has ever formally told a donor it is not covered by the $25,000 aggregate limit on regulated "hard money" contributions. The commission said an Indian tribe is not an individual under campaign finance laws and thus is not subject to the law's $25,000 aggregate annual limit on regulated contributions.

The tribe, however, is a "person" under the law and thus subject to other limits, such as the $1,000 per-election limit on each contribution to a federal candidate, the $20,000 annual limit on contributions to national committee of a political party and the $5,000 limit on contributions to state parties.

Darryl Wold, the FEC's Republican chairman, said he was concerned about the fairness of the result. He said Indian tribes "fall through the cracks" of the current law and FEC regulations.

Wold said that, under the new advisory, a tribe could give $20,000 annually to each of a political party's national committees, plus $5,000 to each of 50 state parties, for a total of $310,000 per year in hard money contributions. He recounted that a handful of tribes spent over $70 million in state campaign and ballot initiatives in California in 1998.

Others played down the significance of loosening restrictions on Indian tribes in the context of massive donations of unregulated "soft money" and issue advocacy activities that have become the norm in modern politics.