WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 11, 2012 – In a significant move, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on June 11 approved a groundbreaking proposal developed by Arent Fox’s Craig Engle and Brett Kappel that allows cell phone users to make political campaign contributions through text messages.

“Today, the FEC has taken a major step towards greater democratization of the American political process,” said Mr. Engle, who chairs Arent Fox’s Political Law practice. “This is truly the future of campaign contributing. By permitting citizens to make small-dollar contributions to political candidates via text-messaging, the commissioners have greatly enhanced the ability of millions of Americans to make their voices heard in the electoral process. It is a game-changing decision by the Commission, which we applaud.”
 

Craig Engle	Brett Kappel

“Today’s action by the FEC will allow small donors to serve as a counterweight to the Super PACs that are widely perceived to be dominating the current political debate in America,” agreed Mr. Kappel. “The Commission’s advisory opinion interprets the 38-year old Federal Campaign Election Act to catch up with today’s rapidly advancing mobile communications technology and, more importantly, opens the door to greater participation in the democratic process by ordinary citizens who want to do what they can to support the candidates who share their values and beliefs.”

As formulated by Mr. Fagle and Mr. Kappel, the newly adopted proposal, which enjoyed bipartisan support, would allow people to text a word such as "donate" or “contribute” to a five-digit number. A small fixed amount of $10, for example, would then be billed to the donor’s cell phone account.

Today’s decision marks a reversal by the FEC, which less than two years ago, rejected a proposal from a cell phone industry trade group that would've allowed voters to send contributions to political candidates via text.

“Our proposal successfully addressed many of the concerns and questions that the commissioners had raised when the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA), made a similar proposal back in 2010,” Mr. Engle said. “We were able to craft a plan that preserves the integrity of the campaign fundraising process while simultaneously opening the door to greater participation in the political process. It was a delicate balance and we are very pleased we were able to walk that tightrope successfully.”

Arent Fox filed the FEC petition on behalf of telecom aggregator m-Qube Inc. and two political consulting firms, Red Blue T LLC, a Republican consulting firm, and ArmourMedia Inc., a Democratic firm. Both the Obama and Romney campaigns supported legalizing text-message contributions and provided statements to the FEC in support of the proposal.

Because of the game-changing nature of the FEC decision, the news media, including The Wall Street Journal, POLITICO, Bloomberg, and The Hill, have paid close attention to the petition in recent weeks. In May, The Washington Post reported that the proposal “could reshape the way many campaign (contributions) are collected.”