Complaint Filed With FEC for Text Messaging in 2012 Election

By Kent Cooper Posted at 11:26 a.m. on Aug. 5

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Unsolicited and anonymous text messages sent just prior to the 2012 election by an individual, his company and his PAC are the subject of a new complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission.
The messages expressed advocated the defeat of President Barack Obama. Articles about the messages from The Washington Post, USA Today, The Atlantic and The Hill, were attached to the complaint. The messages were sent as emails to phone numbers as texts, not phone-to-phone texts.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed the complaint against ccAdvertising, Gabriel S. Joseph III and Americans in Contact PAC. CREW alleges that the PAC is a sham PAC set up to funnel money to Joseph and his company. The complaint states the PAC should have listed its affiliation with the company and should have included a disclaimer on the text messages indicating who paid for the messages. The complaint also alleges that since the PAC was really a separate segregated fund of a company, it violated the law by soliciting contributions from the general public not just its restricted class of executive and administrative employees.
View CREW press release. View complaint.
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