Mississippi Advisory Opinions September 24, 2010: No. 2010-00541 (September 24, 2010)
Collection: Mississippi Attorney General Opinions
Docket: No. 2010-00541
Date: Sept. 24, 2010
Advisory Opinion Text
No. 2010-00541.
AUTH:Phil Carter
DATE:20100924
RQNM:Jimmy Miller
SUBJ:Elections
SBCD:71-A
Post Office Box 209
Marks, Mississippi 38646
Dear Mr. Miller:
Attorney General Jim Hood received your letter of request and assigned it to me for research and reply.
You enclosed a copy of your letter of May 26, 2010 to the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance in which you requested an opinion regarding certain activities in connection with the 2010 Judicial Elections. You also enclosed a copy of the response you received from the Special Committee on Judicial Campaign Intervention (the Committee) which, inter alia, advised you to seek clarification on certain issues involving the campaign finance laws from our office as well as from the Office of Secretary of State.
You set forth the following factual situation:
Individual persons desire to write letters and mail letters in support of a candidate. The letters would ask the voters to support the candidate and vote for the candidate. Such letters would not be generated at the request of the candidate but would, instead, be voluntary activity undertaken by the letter writer on his or her own initiative. Each such letter would clearly state that a cash contribution or donation is not requested and should not be given to or tendered to either the letter writer or the candidate.
Under the same circumstances, i.e., completely voluntary activity not requested by the candidate, individual persons desire to generate and hand out, or post in conspicuous places, other written material urging support for a candidate.
We preface our responses by stating that we do not attempt in this case to interpret Canon 5 of the Code of Judicial Conduct which has already been addressed by the Mississippi Judicial Performance Commission . Our responses are based solely on the statutory provisions of Mississippi's campaign finance laws.
Would that voluntary activity violate Canon 5?
The issue exclusively relates to Canon 5 of the Code of Judicial Conduct. Therefore, we defer to the response given by the Committee in their Opinion 2010-1
Would the cost and expenses of such mailing, or generation and posting of other written materials, be considered a contribution under Canon 5? If so, by whom, the candidate or someone else, must that contribution be reported?
Yes. Mississippi Code Annotated Section 23-15-809 (Revised 2007) requires that every person who makes independent expenditures on behalf of a candidate or a candidate's authorized committee in an aggregate amount or value in excess of two hundred dollars ($200.00) during a calendar year to report such expenditures in accordance with Section 23-15-807.
Must each such letter, or other written material, reflect that it had been submitted to and approved by the candidate?
Section 23-15-1025 requires that such letters and other campaign material state that it is distributed by the candidate or that it is being distributed with the candidate's approval.Such material must identify who has prepared the material and who is distributing the material. It must be stated on the material whether or not the material has been submitted to and approved by the candidate. If the candidate has not approved the material, the material must so state.
Must each such letter, or other written material, reflect by whom it was prepared and by whom the cost and expenses, etc., were paid?
As indicated in our previous responses, such material must identify who prepared said material and any independent expenditure by any person on behalf of a candidate or a candidate's committee in an aggregate amount or value in excess of two hundred dollars ($200.00) must be reported in accordance with Section 23-15-807. We find no statutory requirement that the material itself, in addition to identifying who prepared the material, state by whom the cost and expenses were paid.
Please see our response to Issue One regarding the requirement that independent expenditures be properly reported by those who paid the cost and expenses.
Would such letter writing, or use of other written material, [be] activity ... useable by and through, and only by and through, a candidate's campaign election committee established under Canon 5?
Please see the Committee's responses to Questions 1 and 5 in Opinion 2010-1 that was attached to your letter.
Would any of the answers to the foregoing questions change if the costs and expenses of such mailing and preparation of other written material remained less than $1,000.00 referenced under TERMINOLOGY, "major donor" (c ) of the Code of Judicial Conduct? If so, what change would be made?
Please see the response of the Committee and our response to Issue Two regarding the statutory amount of expenditures that are subject to the reporting requirements.
Sincerely,
JIM HOOD, ATTORNEY GENERAL
By:
Phil Carter
Special Assistant Attorney General