CBS NEWS: Five Things to Know About Jeb Bush
"What he's trying to do is maximize his money and maximize the amount of money he can take in from individual contributors," Lawrence Noble, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center and a former FEC general counsel, told CBS News earlier this year. It was a strategy that no other candidate had attempted, and Noble predicted that unless the Federal Election Committee (FEC) objected, other candidates would eventually try the same thing.
The FEC did not object. But watchdog groups have: Bush - along with fellow Republicans Walker and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum Walker, as well as former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat - was the subject of complaints filed by the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21.
"These 2016 presidential contenders must take the American people for fools--flying repeatedly to Iowa and New Hampshire to meet with party leaders and voters, hiring campaign staff, and raising millions of dollars from deep-pocketed mega donors, all the while denying that they are even 'testing the waters' of a presidential campaign," said Paul S. Ryan, Campaign Legal Center Senior Counsel. "But...the candidate contribution limits kick in as soon as a person begins raising and spending money to determine whether they're going to run for office."
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