The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has proposed that state associations send a larger portion of individual contributions to the NAR, in turn lowering the amount of money going to the state political action committee. In exchange, the NAR will give an equal amount of money from its treasury account to the state association. NAR had asked the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) whether this proposal would be permitted. Other similar groups are interested in ways to expand the ability to raise hard money. The National Association of Realtors asked for an advisory opinion from the FEC (AO 2006-33) regarding a proposal to pay money directly from the corporate treasury of the national trade association to state associations affiliated with the national group. The payments would be made to encourage state associations' PACs to provide more hard money from individual members to the national realtors' PAC. The FEC draft concludes that the proposed arrangement would amount to a trade of corporate "soft money" for hard money and is prohibited. BNA Money and Politics (subscription required) details this case while this blog entry from the Center for Competitive Politics disagrees with the FEC's decision.Update: BNA Money and Politics reports that the FEC commissioners voted against the draft's conclusion. "Rejecting advice from the agency's staff attorneys, the Federal Election Commission voted 4-2 Dec. 14 to allow a national trade group to finance "hard money" fund-raising efforts by its state affiliates to benefit the national group's political action committee."