The Austin American Statesman and Fox Latino may be sharing the opinions of Cafe Con Leche Republicans leader Bob Quasius with their audiences, but the Federal Election Commission has mailed a different sort of story to the Marshall, Minnesota based Republican pro-immigration group.
A letter dated December 4, 2013, announcing the commission's intent to administratively terminate the PAC, has been sent to the committee and posted online at the agency's website. We embed a copy of the pdf below.
The letter begins:
Pursuant to 2 U.S.C. §433(d)(2) of the Federal Election Campaign Act, and Commission regulations at 11 CFR §102.4, the Commission intends to administratively terminate your committee. As such, your committee is no longer obligated to file reports. However, any receipt or disbursement of funds by the committee for the purpose of influencing a Federal election or supporting a federal candidate will void the administrative termination. In such an event, the committee will be required to begin filing reports with the appropriate office. The first such report will include any activity since the date of the last report filed by the committee. The treasurer of the committee has 30 days from the day of receipt of this notice to object to this administrative termination. If a written objection is not received by the Commission within 30 days, this action will take effect. [emphasis added]
Since the PAC has 30 days to appeal the decision, the action is not yet final. Robert T. Quasius Sr is the treasurer of the PAC. Since organizing in 2011, the organization has yet to file a report of receipts and disbursements with the commission, which sent the PAC its latest failure to file notice on August 22, 2013. The notice covered the period from 1/01/2013 through 6/30/2013.
Although the group has never filed a report of receipt or disbursement of funds, Quasius does solicit contributions on the group's website with the following disclaimer:
Contributions will be used to fund Cafe Con Leche Republican’s operations and to support candidates who reflect our values and mission. You can contribute via PayPal, or by mailing a check or money order to: P.O. Box 214, Marshall, MN 56258Cafe Con Leche Republicans is a federal political action committee (FEC ID C00505115). Contributions to the organization are not deductible for Federal income tax purposes as charitable contributions. To comply with Federal law, we must use our best efforts to obtain, maintain, and submit the name, mailing address, occupation and name of employer of individuals whose contributions exceed $200 per calendar year.
It is not possible at this time to determine if the committee is receiving contributions via this online solicitation or disbursing funds to candidates or for other activity, since no reports have been filed. Should any money come in or be spent by the committee, it would appear from the letter that that activity would void the termination process.
A non-Hispanic resident of Marshall and Lyon County who is married to an immigrant from Honduras, Quasius has been active in recent efforts by the Republican Party of Minnesota to reach out to voters in communities of color and New Americans in immigrant communities. Quasius recently took part in CD4 Republicans' Latino Outreach Conference on Marketing Conservative Solutions to Latino voters on October 12.
Other efforts within the party include the Minority Liberty Alliance. The Republican Party of Minnesota's move to East Franklin Avenue from near the Minnesota State Capitol, on the other hand, places the party in a less diverse and and more affluent neighborhood, the Star Tribune reports, than the old neighborhood "with a population that skews heavily Hmong and African-American."
While the party has grown less strident about immigration than during the Pawlenty years, it's not quite mastered the transformation that Quasius has navigated since opposing immigration reform as a supporter of 2006 CD7 Republican congressional candidate Michael Barrett. His 2006 letter to the Fergus Falls Daily Journal, Amnesty is the wrong course for America, is a testament to how a leader's position can change from an unwillingness to create a pathway to citizenship for "illegal aliens" to a recent column supporting immigration reform while noting objections to the phrase "illegal immigrant."
Here's the pdf of the letter from the Federal Election Commission's website:
FEC Letter of Intention to Administratively Terminate Cafe Con Leche Republicans Committee
Photo: Bob Quasius via Texas GOP Vote.
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