Blurring 'Jeb!'

Jeb Bush’s Super PAC is Blurring 'Jeb!' Signs in Its Own Ad. Here’s Why.

The complicated world of campaign finance.

By Shane Goldmacher

Jeb Bush's super PAC makes no secret of its plans to spend tens of millions of dollars to help Bush win the Republican presidential nomination next year.

But in the group's new 30-second video promoting Bush—a compilation of highlights from his announcement speech earlier this month—the group is blurring the multitude of "Jeb!" stickers and signage in the Miami crowd.

It's not for style. It's to comply with the law.

Federal election law says that broadcasting written or graphic materials prepared by a campaign amounts to a contribution and, thus, is subject to campaign-contribution limits.

The whole point of a super PAC is to raise and spend money outside those limits.

So the group blurred the "Jeb!" signs at the event.

"They are avoiding this allegation" of reproducing campaign materials, said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center.

It's not clear if there are plans to advertise the Web video, which clocks in at exactly 30 seconds, on TV or online. A spokesman for the Right to Rise USA, the pro-Bush super PAC, declined to comment for this story.

The relevant section of the federal code says that "the dissemination, distribution, or republication, in whole or in part, of any broadcast or any written, graphic, or other form of campaign materials prepared by the candidate" constitutes a contribution to the candidate.

The idea behind the rule, Ryan explained, is to prevent an outside group from simply taking a candidate's yard signs and reproducing them, or recording a candidate's TV ad and re-airing it.

Ryan's group and other campaign-finance reformers have been highly critical of the arrangement between Bush and his super PAC, in which the two worked together for months ahead of Bush's formal entry into the race this month. Earlier this year, the Campaign Legal Center asked the Department of Justice to investigate what it called "willful violations" of federal law.

In this particular instance, the Bush super PAC appears to be cautiously adhering to the law.

Super PACs have been steadily pushing the boundaries of coordination and the reproduction of campaign materials in recent years. Numerous candidates, perhaps most memorably Mitch McConnell last year, have posted video B-roll of their candidates online, hoping super PACs use the favorable footage in ads.

The specific right of outside groups to use such B-roll actually came before the Federal Election Commission in 2012. The six-member panel, divided equally between Democrats and Republicans, deadlocked on the matter. Super PACs have used such candidate-produced footage ever since.