GIFFORDS v. National Rifle Association, et al.

Under FECA, Political Action Committees (PACs) can make direct contributions to candidates, but those donations are capped at $5,000 per election. However, for expenditures made independently of any candidate or campaign—such as ads supporting a candidate or targeting their opponent—there are generally no spending limits. These safeguards exist to protect the integrity of our elections, preventing excessive outside influence over candidates and outcomes. But the NRA sought a way around them.

Instead, the NRA funneled as much as $35 million into multiple federal election campaigns, disguising illegal contributions as independent expenditures. They did this by using the same political consulting firms as the campaigns they supported—just under different names. This level of coordination is illegal on multiple fronts: not only did their contributions far exceed the $5,000 legal limit and go unreported, but, as a corporate entity, the NRA was prohibited from making such contributions altogether.

When special interests like the NRA secretly collude with politicians, they corrupt our election system and deny voters the right to know who is trying to influence their vote. That’s why we called them out.

GIFFORDS filed a series of complaints in 2018 and 2019 to alert the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that the NRA was engaged in an unlawful scheme that violated federal election law. When the FEC did not act on the complaints, GIFFORDS—represented by Campaign Legal Center Action—took the commission to court. On September 30, 2021, the US District Court in Washington DC issued an order compelling the FEC to consider acting on the complaints within 30 days. The FEC declined to take action, and after 30 days elapsed, the court ruled that Giffords could sue the NRA directly for violations of federal campaign finance law. And that’s exactly what we did.

Our complaint alleges that the NRA made approximately $35 million in excessive, unlawful, and unreported in-kind contributions to multiple federal election campaigns, violating the Federal Election Campaign Act. Those campaigns include (with the candidate receiving the NRA’s support in bold):

These entities were so brazen in their conduct that they didn’t even try to hide it—OnMessageaccepted several industry awards for presidential campaign ads paid for by the NRA on behalf of their efforts to elect Donald Trump as president. But the NRA never paid OnMessage to create and broadcast the ads—they paid Starboard.

And in a second scheme to bypass federal election law, the NRA coordinated ad placement with candidates through a political media company called National Media (NMRP&P) that did business under the name “Red Eagle” when working with the NRA and “AMAG” when working with candidates’ campaigns. Yet again, each version of the company shared the same address, employees, and registered agent as OnMessage/Starboard.

Taken together, the Starboard and National Media schemes represent a continuous and ongoing pattern and practice by the NRA to illegally coordinate advertising spending with candidates for federal office through a common vendor, and to shield their illegal acts from federal regulators through the use of shell corporations. 

GIFFORDS, alongside Campaign Legal Center Action, is bringing this lawsuit to expose and stop this corruption to protect our elections from unlawful outside interference. It’s no coincidence that many of the candidates who benefitted from this illegal scheme went on to become some of the gun lobby’s staunchest allies in Congress and the White House, blocking and deterring the passage of lifesaving gun safety laws at every turn.

The lawsuit seeks several forms of relief, including:

This case is about more than just one organization—it’s about protecting the integrity of our democracy and ensuring voters, not secret special interests, decide our elections.

The civil action against the Federal Election Commission, Giffords v. FEC, was filed on April 24, 2019, in the federal district court for the District of Columbia (Case No. 1:19-cv-01192), and named the FEC as the defendant.

The civil lawsuit against the NRA, Giffords v. NRA et al., was filed on November 2, 2021, in the federal district court for the District of Columbia (Case No. 1:21-cv-02887), and named as defendants, the National Rifle Association of America Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF), the National Rifle Association of America Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), the campaign of Matt Rosendale for Montana, and the campaign of Josh Hawley for Senate.