The FEC's plans for political ad disclosures

Officials at the Federal Election Commission are reaching out to political ad buyers, among others, to solicit more comments about potential new disclosure rules, Axios has learned. At this point, most of the FEC's efforts are around gathering ideas about ways to modernize outdated disclosure laws.

Among a few other ideas expected to be considered (they're still far away from actual implementation):

1. Creating a database of all political ads
2. Banning programmatic (automated) political ads from being sold

Why it matters: The past election cycle showed just how much modern campaigns lean on programmatic advertising to reach voters and donors with persuasive ads that could push them to vote one way or another.

Where it gets tricky: It will be hard for the six-person commission, divided equally among party lines, to come to a consensus, according to sources within the FEC, meaning that any major disclosure efforts would have to come from Congress.

• Republican commissioners have traditionally approached regulations around election disclosures with hostility, and in order to push measures forward, two of the three Republican commissioners would need to break with party lines, because a Democratic commissioner seat is vacant at the moment.

Timing: The commission is accepting comments for 30 days. After that, FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub tells Axios, "I think things are moving fast and we need to get moving fast."

The back story: Per Borrell Associates, $800 million was spent on automated advertising on Google and Facebook during last year's election. The Trump campaign spent nearly as much money on programmatic ads as TV ads.

Go deeper: Read full story.

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