Friday, September 18, 2015

Fiorina Super PAC Tests Legal Limits of Campaign Coordination





The emergence of super PACs and their ability to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns has raised legal questions as to how campaigns and candidates are allowed to communicate or coordinate with them since the Citizens United decision in 2010.

In the past six years, those limits have been tested in various ways. But in the current presidential campaign, the lines are being blurred even more and no candidate is testing the legal limits more visibly or blatantly than Carly Fiorina, whose performance in Wednesday night's Republican debate has thrust her candidacy into the spotlight.

That line-testing was on display on a 90 degree afternoon in New Hampshire earlier this month as four presidential candidates sweated through the Milford Labor Day Parade - Fiorina, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

All four walked along, flanked by supporters carrying signs and touting their candidate.

But Fiorina's supporters stood out. They wore shirts and carried signs pitching "CARLY for America" — the name of the super PAC backing the candidate, not her campaign.



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