Sponsors (4)
The bill increases donor privacy and tightens protections against foreign involvement in voter-related activities while strengthening certain reporting certifications — but it reduces public transparency, raises compliance costs, and may weaken enforcement and chill lawful civic engagement.
Voters and taxpayers: bans foreign nationals from donating for voter registration, GOTV, ballot collection, or partisan communications, reducing the risk of foreign influence in U.S. elections.
Donors and nonprofits: bars federal collection/public disclosure of donor identities for many 501(c) organizations and adds criminal penalties for unlawful leaks, protecting donor privacy and encouraging charitable giving.
Nonprofits, campaign committees, and state authorities: requires perjury-backed certifications on reports and independent expenditures, improving the formal accountability of political spending disclosures.
Taxpayers, nonprofits, journalists, and researchers: limits public transparency about who funds tax‑exempt groups, reducing watchdog oversight and making it harder to trace influence on politics and policy.
Nonprofits, civic groups, and low-income voters: the broad prohibition on foreign-associated support for voter-related activities could deter lawful domestic civic engagement (voter registration, GOTV), chilling turnout efforts.
Federal enforcement and election oversight: narrowing FEC investigations to narrow factual matters and reducing access to donor information could hinder detection of complex schemes and weaken enforcement of campaign finance and foreign‑influence rules.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Expands the foreign‑national contribution ban to more election activities, tightens reporting and certification duties, limits some FEC procedures, and bars federal disclosure of 501(c) donor identities with felony penalties for willful unlawful disclosures.
Official title: To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to prevent foreign interference in United States elections, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 11, 2026 by Bryan Steil · Last progress May 11, 2026
Prohibits foreign nationals from funding a wider set of election-related activities (voter registration, ballot collection, voter ID efforts, get-out-the-vote drives, certain public communications, and election administration) and bars knowingly aiding such violations. It tightens reporting and certification requirements for treasurers and entities making independent expenditures, limits certain FEC investigative scope, and lets courts quash overly broad subpoenas. It also makes it a felony for federal officers or employees to willfully disclose identifying donor information about 501(c) tax-exempt organizations, while allowing a limited set of statutory and court-ordered disclosures. Most changes apply to donations or reports made or filed on or after the law's enactment.