I dedicate this Note to Nicholas Valentino, Andrei Markovits, Myna Sharma, Lakshmi Sharma, Anil Sharma, and Dave Tollaksen.

Finally, I would like to thank Jordan Dannenberg and the editors of the Yale Law Journal for their thoughtful and thorough editing. I would also like to thank Nicholas Parrillo, Daniel Markovits, Francesca Procaccini, and Floyd Abrams for discussions that informed the direction of this Note.

I am grateful to Doug Spencer for his feedback on earlier drafts, guidance, and encouragement. Congress must act to force the FEC to adopt a workable, properly calibrated test to deal with redboxing and other coordinative practices that have emerged in the post- Citizens United world.Īuthor. Ultimately, I argue that the practice of redboxing reveals just how unsophisticated and misguided the Supreme Court’s campaign-finance jurisprudence really is-and that the FEC’s test for coordination does not draw administrable lines but creates gaping loopholes. To begin to root out the practice, I propose litigation strategies that can be implemented in enforcement actions before the FEC, as well as administrative reforms to strengthen coordination rules.

I argue that the practice harms democratic accountability and contributes to political polarization by introducing the risk of quid pro quo corruption and allowing candidates to evade the monetary and reputational costs of their own political speech. I contend that the practice violates federal law prohibiting strategic coordination between super PACs, candidates, and parties, as redboxes are illegal requests for super PACs to run an advertisement to help a candidate. In this Note, I provide the first descriptive account of the practice, and assess its legality under the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) three-part test for coordination. Redboxing is the term used by campaign operatives to describe when candidates and political parties post public, online messages to share campaign strategy with allied super political action committees (PACs). This Note presents the first analysis of “redboxing” and its legality.

Only the brave cast red box