2 Letter of October 13, 1995 from William J. Clinton to the Honorable Danny Lee McDonald; Letter of April 24, 1995 from Robert J. Dole to Chairman, Federal Election Commission.

3 Letter signed August 29, 1996 by William J. Clinton and Albert Gore, Jr. to the Honorable Lee Ann Elliott; Letter of August 14, 1996 from Robert J. Dole and Jack F. Kemp to the Honorable Lee Ann Elliott.

4 Federal Election Commission, "FEC Announces 1996 Presidential Spending Limits," (Press Release, March 15, 1996).

5 Although a recent Supreme Court decision, Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. Federal Election Commission, 116 S.Ct. 2309 (1996), held that political parties can make "independent expenditures" on behalf of their candidates for Congress, the Court specifically noted that it was not "address[ing] issues that might grow out of the public funding of Presidential campaigns", and thus did not hold that the political parties could make independent expenditures in publicly funded presidential elections. In any event, the expenditures at issue in this matter were controlled and directed by agents of the presidential campaigns, and plainly could not qualify as having been made "independently" from the presidential campaigns.

6 U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses (6th ed. January, 1995) at 93.

7 These "core" provisions, according to the Justice Department guidelines, include the limits on contributions from persons and groups, the ban on contributions from corporations and labor unions, and avoidance of the statute's disclosure requirements. Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses at 96-97.

8 The dollar amount of the spending limit set forth in the statute is $10 million, but this amount is adjusted each election cycle to account for changes in the consumer price index. 2 U.S.C. 441a(c). As noted above, the adjusted spending limit for the 1996 primary campaign, including the twenty percent exemption for fundraising disbursements, was approximately $37 million.

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