Rubio wants to ban foreign contributions for ballot initiatives
For years, Republican politicians have generally embraced fewer restrictions on political donations, arguing that deeppocketed donors and corporations have a right to support politicians they agree with.
But a recent Federal Elections Commission Ruling led Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio to take a different approach.
On Nov. 2, the FEC ruled that foreign donors can contribute to statebased ballot initiatives and referendum campaigns — potentially opening the door for foreigners to influence U.S. policy.
Eight states have laws on the books banning such donations but federal law does not prohibit foreign contributions to referendums and ballot initiatives. Florida is not one of the eight states that explicitly bans the practice.
Immediately after the FEC ruling, Rubio said he plans to introduce legislation that would ban any foreign donations for U.S. ballot initiatives. Foreign donations are already prohibited in elections of officeholders. Only U.S. citizens, permanent residents and U.S.-based companies can donate.
Rubio, the highestprofile Republican to announce opposition to the ruling that was backed by the FEC’s GOP commissioners, said the prospect of Chinese or Russian involvement, in particular, is worrying.
“What stops a Chinese company, that we know all are under the control of the Communist Party of China, from investing millions of dollars in a state ballot initiative in any state in the country that creates all kinds of chaos in our politics?” Rubio said. “And they most certainly have the ability to do that directly through their companies, through PACs they set up, through individuals that lend themselves to that. So I think it’s a terrible mistake. Obviously we can write a law to fix it. The FEC just interprets the law. We write it.”
The FEC’s ruling was in response to a 2018 ballot initiative in Montana, in which a Canadian subsidiary of an Australian mining company donated $270,000 in opposition of a plan to impose new regulations on mining. The ballot initiative ultimately failed in a victory for mining companies.
BIPARTISAN SUPPORT
On many contentious issues, the FEC’s six commissioners are often deadlocked on party lines. But one Democratic commissioner joined the three Republicans on the panel to dismiss the Montana complaint last week.
Rubio said he hasn’t seen any evidence of foreign corporations getting involved in Florida’s ballot measures, which in recent years have raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour, banned offshore drilling and gave voters the right to approve expansion of gambling. But the FEC ruling, in theory, could prompt a foreign corporation to donate money in future ballot measure votes because Florida is not one of the eight states that explicitly bans the practice.
Rubio hasn’t introduced a formal bill yet, though he said there’s “bipartisan concern about foreign
governments operating through the private sector to interfere both in our politics and, frankly, in our economic decisions.”
Since Rubio announced his opposition, other lawmakers from both parties introduced bills to ban foreign donations.
In the House of Representatives, Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy is part of a group of six lawmakers from both parties who on Monday introduced legislation that bans all foreign contributions to U.S. ballot initiatives. New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand also introduced similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.
Rubio also said he’s interested in potentially crafting legislative language that would ban certain U.S.-based corporate subsidiaries from donating to ballot initiatives. Under current law, U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies are allowed to collect contributions from their U.S.-based employees to donate to U.S. elections.
For example, U.S. subsidiaries of companies based in the United Kingdom donated $5.4 million through political action committees to federal elections during the 2020 election cycle.
FOCUS ON CHINA
But Rubio said he would like to create a list of countries who would see their U.S. subsidiaries banned from making donations, singling out China and Russia.
“If it’s a foreign subsidiary that works for a nation that poses a specific threat to the United States, for example China or Russia or other countries, I think that companies that are subsidiaries of companies that operate from those countries [should] be on a list and prohibited from doing that,” Rubio said. “In essence, every Chinese company has a Chinese minder on their board making sure that that company is doing what government wants them to do. That’s different from a private company from England or Spain or somewhere else.”
Brendan Fischer, the director of campaign finance and government ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, an advocacy group that seeks to limit the influence of money in politics, said the FEC’s ruling creates a “big loophole ... letting foreign interests pour millions into state or local ballot measure campaigns.”
But Fischer also pointed out that legislation to ban such donations existed before the FEC’s ruling — and was voted down by every Republican in the U.S. Senate last month.
The Freedom to Vote Act, a bill supported by centrist West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin as a potential bipartisan voting rights compromise, included language that expands the definition of a “federal, state or local election” where foreign contributions are banned to include state or local ballot initiatives or referendums.
Ultimately, every Republican in the U.S. Senate decided not to support Manchin’s voting rights compromise, a scaled-back bill from earlier proposals. It failed to advance after a procedural vote was blocked by a Republican filibuster on Oct. 20.