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Bill
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Creating Candidate Capacity to Protect Act

H.R. 3850 · 116th Congress · Jul 18, 2019 · Lineage

A BILL

To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to exempt assistance provided by political parties to the campaigns of candidates who are affiliated with such parties for secure information communications technology or cybersecurity products or services from the limitations on the amount of coordinated expenditures parties may make in connection with the campaigns of such candidates, and for other purposes.

Section 1 Short title

This Act may be cited as the “Creating Candidate Capacity to Protect Act”.

Sec. 2 Exemption of cybersecurity assistance from limitations on amount of coordinated political party expenditures

(a)
Exemption— Section 315(d)(5) of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (52 U.S.C. 30116(d)(5)) is amended—
(1)
by striking “(5)” and inserting “(5)(A)”;
(2)
by striking the period at the end and inserting “, or to expenditures (whether provided as funds or provided as in-kind services) for secure information communications technology or for a cybersecurity product or service.”; and
(3)
by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:

“(B) In subparagraph (A)—

“(i) the term secure information communications technology means a commercial-off-the-shelf computing device which has been configured to restrict unauthorized access and uses publicly available baseline configurations; and

“(ii) the term cybersecurity product or service means a product or service which helps an organization to achieve the set of standards, guidelines, best practices, methodologies, procedures, and processes to cost-effectively identify, detect, protect, respond to, and recover from cyber risks as developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology pursuant to subsections (c)(15) and (e) of section 2 of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Act (15 U.S.C. 272).”

(b)
Effective date— The amendments made by subsection (a) shall apply with respect to expenditures made on or after the date of the enactment of this Act.