Vice President Kamala Harris, recently appointed by US President Joe Biden as his replacement in the presidential election race, currently has no authority to control funds raised by his election campaign. This claim comes from finance lawyers for the Republican Party (GOP), according to the Washington Post. If an attempt is made to use these funds, it could result in a lawsuit being filed against them.
Following the announcement of his withdrawal from the US presidential election race on Sunday, Biden endorsed Harris as his replacement on the ballot, and his campaign committee promptly filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to re-designate the campaign as “Harris for President.” Democratic lawyers and operatives argue that installing Harris as the nominee was the most straightforward solution for the party due to her name already being on the paperwork, and funds having been raised jointly with Biden. At the end of June, the Biden campaign reported having $95 million in its coffers.
Alternatively, the money could be refunded to donors. However, any new presidential candidates would need to launch their fundraising campaigns from scratch, as there are only just over three months left until the election.
According to GOP-aligned campaign finance lawyers, the Biden campaign does not possess legal authority to appoint Harris and allow her control of these funds. The step “is all but certain” to be challenged before the FEC or in court, they argue, as cited by WaPo. Prominent GOP campaign finance lawyer Charlie Spies told the publication that both Biden and Harris would need to have been officially nominated by the Democratic Party at its convention next month before any kind of funding handoff could take place.
Only under these circumstances would campaign finance law allow a vice-presidential nominee to take control of the campaign’s depository if the presidential nominee withdraws, Spies noted. Biden can’t transfer his money to Harris because it was raised under his own name, and there is no legal mechanism for it to have been raised jointly with Harris before they were their party’s nominees,” he said.
A campaign cannot keep money for an election the candidate isn’t running in,” Craig Engle, a former lawyer for an FEC commission, told CNN. The six-member FEC panel that would rule on such matters has long been evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, WaPo notes. This partisan divide means that the commissioners could deadlock on the issue, potentially leading to litigation in court.
According to Sean Cooksey, a Republican who holds the post of FEC chairman, the situation is unprecedented under current campaign finance law, and it “raises a host of open questions about whether it is legal, what limits apply and what contributors’ rights are.