Republicans’ ActBlue Probe Could Derail Campaign Finance Reform

Republican lawmakers are targeting ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising juggernaut, as they push for campaign finance reform. It’s putting an otherwise bipartisan effort at risk.

Four bills reforming campaign finance were recently approved by the House Administration Committee: two from Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wisconsin), one introduced by ranking member Rep. Joe Morelle (D-New York), and another introduced jointly by Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania). The ideas, such as requiring a CVV code for credit card contributions and prohibiting contributions with gift cards, are mostly bipartisan and popular with legislators and Americans alike.

Legislation making similar changes has been championed time and time again by Democrats and Republicans alike going back more than a decade, from then-Sen. Marco Rubio to former Rep. Katie Porter.

But further bipartisan progress appears strained as it coincides with a Republican-led investigation into whether ActBlue accepted improper contributions and misled Congress about its fraud prevention practices in a 2023 letter to Steil. Democrats say the one-sided probe — Morelle called the investigation a “partisan witch hunt” — shows that Republicans are more focused on political wins than reform.

A senior Democratic committee aide not authorized to speak on the record said that committee Republicans were “clearly unserious in their attempt to deliver the campaign finance reform that Americans want to see.”

The Committee on Administration held a hearing on Wednesday with ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones, where she pleaded the Fifth 22 times and did not answer a single question from Republican legislators.

“Anytime that an issue is viewed as weaponized on Capitol Hill, that creates headwinds,” said Michael Beckel, director of money in politics reform at Issue One, a nonprofit group that advocates for reducing the influence of money in politics.

“Tackling a major institutional player like ActBlue, that’s going to make some Democrats less enthusiastic about helping it across the finish line, even if in the abstract, Democrats and Republicans alike are going to tell you that the CVV information should be processed on all credit card donations to campaigns,” he continued.

After the hearing on Wednesday, Steil said he views the legislation and the ActBlue investigation as separate issues.

“There’s two issues on the table,” the committee chair said. “One is updating our campaign finance laws to the modern era. We’ve shown bipartisan support of that. But this question as it relates to ActBlue is about lying to Congress, and for only one entity — ActBlue — is there evidence of lying to Congress.”

But Steil told Fox News in May that the legislation was informed by the committee’s investigation into ActBlue.

“My investigation into ActBlue has demonstrated that the current campaign finance laws weren’t drafted for the modern era we live in,” he said at the time.

Though most of the changes the legislation seeks to enact are popular with Democrats and Republicans, the Campaign Finance Transparency Act makes one change that could be unpopular with Republicans.

The bill calls for the elimination of the de minimis reporting exemption. As it stands, committees are required to report the name, address, occupation and employer of any individual who contributes more than $200 aggregated. The legislation seeks to eliminate that threshold and require that all campaign contributions be itemized. Small dollar donations made through conduits like WinRed and ActBlue are already required to be itemized.

It’s an idea that’s unpopular with conservatives, free speech groups and many in the campaign finance world.

“The threshold for itemized reporting of political contributions is just too low,” Dan Backer, a conservative campaign finance lawyer who won the Supreme Court case that struck down aggregate contribution limits, told NOTUS. “Two hundred dollars is a negligible amount in the scheme of federal elections. I think from a practical perspective, raising it to $500 or more makes sense. Lowering the limit would just clutter the reports, waste time and money, and doesn’t add any real value.”

Steil’s office did not respond to a request from NOTUS about why that change was necessary. But a money-in-politics expert, granted anonymity to speak candidly, theorized that it stems from a conspiracy theory that bad actors are exploiting the $200 limit by having straw donors donate $199, circumventing the need for their identities to be reported.

“I think that will never get across the finish line,” the money in politics expert said. “If this bill ever makes it over to the Senate, it’s never going to pass [Sen. Mitch] McConnell on the Rules Committee.”

McConnell (R-Kentucky), who chairs the Senate’s Rules and Administration Committee, is a fierce opponent of campaign finance restrictions and has previously opposed new legislation requiring the disclosure of donors. His office did not have a comment on his position on the reporting threshold.

The legislation is also being advanced at a time when Republicans are potentially running up against a clock, should Democrats retake the house in November.

Steil and other Republicans on the committee said they are committed to seeing the legislation through, though none have articulated how.