Fair Campaign Communications Act

II 116TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION S. 4146 To require the Federal Election Commission to conduct a study on the classification of political campaign emails as spam. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES JULY 1, 2020 Mr. MERKLEY introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration A BILL To require the Federal Election Commission to conduct a study on the classification of political campaign emails as spam. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Fair Campaign Com- 4 munications Act’’. 5 SEC. 2. STUDY ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF EMAIL FROM 6 POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS. 7 (a) DEFINITIONS.—For purposes of this section: 8 (1) EMAIL PROVIDER.—The term ‘‘email pro- 9 vider’’ means any person who provides access to 10 VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:58 Jul 12, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S4146.IS S4146 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 2 •S 4146 IS electronic mail messages through an account that 1 is— 2 (A) associated with the electronic mail ad- 3 dress of a user; and 4 (B) administered by such person. 5 (2) POLITICAL CAMPAIGN EMAIL.—The term 6 ‘‘political campaign email’’ means an electronic mail 7 message from an authorized committee (as defined 8 in section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act 9 of 1974 (52 U.S.C. 30101)) of a candidate for Fed- 10 eral office. 11 (b) STUDY.— 12 (1) IN GENERAL.—The Federal Election Com- 13 mission shall conduct a study on the practices and 14 procedures used by email providers with respect to 15 political campaign emails, including the classification 16 of such emails as spam or the assignment of such 17 emails to a separate location apart from other emails 18 regularly received by the user. 19 (2) SPECIFICATIONS.—The study conducted 20 under paragraph (1) shall— 21 (A) include multiple email providers that 22 in the aggregate serve a majority of email 23 users; 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:58 Jul 12, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S4146.IS S4146 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 3 •S 4146 IS (B) shall not include the collection of any 1 proprietary information. 2 (3) REPORT.—Not later than December 31, 3 2020, the Federal Election Commission shall submit 4 to Congress a report on the study conducted under 5 paragraph (1). The report provided under this para- 6 graph shall not include any information that can be 7 identified with any individual candidate or author- 8 ized committee. 9 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:58 Jul 12, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\S4146.IS S4146 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS