Contact: James Bopp, Jr., 812-232-2434, jboppjr@aol.com 

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 /Standard Newswire/ -- The Republican National Committee (RNC) today announced it will file lawsuits in the District of Columbia and Louisiana challenging, respectively, the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act's ban on national parties raising and spending non-federal dollars, and the constitutionality of political party coordinated expenditure limits.  The RNC does so to defend its interests as a national party committee with varied interests, including both state and federal elections, as well as redistricting and grassroots lobbying.  RNC Chairman Robert M. "Mike" Duncan released the following statement today concerning the lawsuits.

"The campaign finance restrictions the RNC today challenged infringe on the First Amendment's core: political speech and association," Duncan said.  "The RNC must have the ability to support state candidates, coordinate expenditures with our candidates, and truly engage in political activity on a national level.  The RNC has operated under and complied with these provisions of the law since their enactment, and as applied it is unconstitutional."

In a suit filed in the District of Columbia, the RNC and the California Republican Party are challenging McCain-Feingold's soft money restrictions as applied to various activities of the RNC and California Republican Party which are not related to federal elections.  Under McCain-Feingold, the RNC is prohibited from raising and spending soft money and much of the activities of state political parties, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities, are regulated by federal law.  In 2003, the McCain-Feingold soft money restrictions were upheld on their face, but the suit here claims that the soft money restrictions cannot constitutionally be applied to activities which are not closely related to federal elections, such as support for candidates for state office and efforts to influence the passage of legislation.

In a suit filed in district court in Louisiana, the RNC and the Louisiana Republican Party are challenging the limits on coordinated expenditure that severely limit the ability of political parties to work with their candidates. The coordinated expenditure limits were upheld in 1996, on their face, to the extent that the political parties were simply paying the bills of their candidates under the coordinated expenditure limit. The suit challenges the coordinated expenditure limits as applied to the parties' own speech, when they want to do their own ads supporting their candidates.

James Bopp, Jr., RNC Vice Chairman, is lead attorney in both cases.  He recently won the case of Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election Commission, which held that McCain-Feingold's blackout period for broadcast ads before an election could not be constitutionally applied to ads that do not call for a vote for or against a candidate.