• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Campaign Finance>
  3. fec>

Good-government coalition opposes restocking the FEC in an election year

Sara Swann
https://twitter.com/saramswann?lang=en
January 13, 2020
Empty podium

The agency has lacked a quorum for 19 weeks, meaning it can't regulate money in the 2020 campaign.

Semen Salivanchuk/Getty Images

Hitting the restart button on the Federal Election Commission during this campaign season is not the answer to better enforcement of the rules regulating money in politics, a coalition of good-government groups says.

Twenty-one such organizations declared their disagreement Monday with a proposal from a bipartisan collection of 31 prominent campaign finance lawyers. Last week the lawyers asked President Trump and the leaders of Congress to come up with an entirely new slate at the FEC to oversee campaign donations and spending in this year's presidential and congressional races.

Since the law allows half the commissioners to favor broad deregulation, because they're Republicans, lax enforcement and gridlock would be the end result of such an overhaul, the reform groups argued. Instead, they called for the confirmation of one or two new commissioners to create a quorum permitting at least minimal oversight through November.


The agency has had a long run of ideological division. And, since it's designed so that neither party may fill a majority of the seats, that polarization has meant many of the toughest decisions have gone unaddressed for years.

But that paralysis has now gone to a new level. The panel has had just three members, one short of the minimum required to take any substantive action, for the past 19 weeks. All are serving past the expiration of their terms, as the law allows. But they may not hold public meetings, open new investigations, identify and sanction newly alleged campaign finance violations, or conduct audits of presidential candidates' fundraising and spending. Neither can it dispose of more than 300 cases already on its docket.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The last time there was no quorum was 2008. But, after six months with just two seats occupied, President George W. Bush and Senate Democrats restocked the entire commission in June, allowing it to referee campaign finance disputes during the general election campaign.

Trump's one nominee for the agency, Republican Texas attorney Trey Trainor, has been in limbo for two years — and his confirmation has recently grown more complicated. The newly released files of the late Thomas Hofeller, who was renowned for his expertise as a partisan gerrymanderer, shows that he worked with Trainor to make the districts in normally Democratic-leaning Galveston County much more favorable to the GOP, according to the news site WhoWhatWhy.

If his nomination stays alive, as a practical matter the only way to get a second vacancy filled would be if the choice was assigned to the top Democrat in the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

The lawyers say the time is ripe for Trump to put forward an entire slate of six, three of whom would have to be Democrats.

But the the good-government groups say that, instead, after at least one new person is seated, a bipartisan blue-ribbon panel should be established to help find qualified candidates to fill the remaining spots.

While the groups agree that a functioning FEC is crucial to the country's electoral process, especially ahead of this year's election, they said the agency's problems predate its loss of a quorum: "Those problems stem largely from the historical practice of nominating and confirming commissioners who are ideologically opposed to the mission of the agency and who block enforcement of our nation's anti-corruption laws."

"To ensure the 2020 elections are transparent and fair, the president and Senate must prioritize restoration of the FEC's quorum, but that is no excuse to restock the FEC with yet another crop of commissioners who oppose campaign finance reform," argues Adav Noti of the Campaign Legal Center, one of the groups on the letter.

The other organizations include Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, End Citizens United Action Fund, League of Women Voters of the United States, Public Citizen and Take Back Our Republic.

From Your Site Articles
  • FEC severely limited by lack of quorum - The Fulcrum ›
  • Deal to revive FEC could include its first African-American member ... ›
  • Campaign finance lawyers call for new FEC commissioners - The ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Good Government Groups Push for Nonpartisan Panel to Find FEC ... ›
  • Bipartisan group of campaign finance lawyers urge leaders to ... ›
  • Could take FEC a while to regain a quorum, but don't expect a 'Wild ... ›
fec

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow
Contributors

Hypocrisy of pro-lifers being anti-LGBTQIA

Steve Corbin

A dangerous loss of trust

William Natbony

Shifting the narrative on homelessness in America

David L. Nevins

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber
latest News

Three practical presidential pledges to promote national prosperity

James-Christian B. Blockwood
4h

Meet the Faces of Democracy: Justin Roebuck

Mia Minkin
4h

Podcast: Why Is Congressional Oversight Important, and How Can It Be Done Well? (with Elise Bean)

Kevin R. Kosar
Elise J. Bean
11h

Chipping away at election integrity: Virginia joins red state exodus from ERIC

David J. Toscano
30 May

Your Take on congressional incivility

Lennon Wesley III
26 May

White House plan to combat antisemitism needs to take on centuries of hatred, discrimination and even lynching in America

Pamela Nadell
26 May
Videos

Video: Honoring Memorial Day

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirst Friday YOUnify & CPL

Our Staff

Video: What is the toll of racial violence on Black lives?

Our Staff

Video: What's next for migrants seeking asylum after Title 42

Our Staff

Video: An inside look at the campaign to repeal Pennsylvania’s closed primaries

Our Staff

Video: Where the immigration debate stands today

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: AI revolution: Disaster or great leap forward?

Our Staff
25 May

Podcast: Can we fix America's financial crises?

Our Staff
23 May

Podcast: Gen Z's fight for democracy

Our Staff
22 May

Podcast: Political Football, Inc.

Our Staff
19 May
Recommended
Three practical presidential pledges to promote national prosperity

Three practical presidential pledges to promote national prosperity

Big Picture
Meet the Faces of Democracy: Justin Roebuck

Meet the Faces of Democracy: Justin Roebuck

State
Podcast: Why Is Congressional Oversight Important, and How Can It Be Done Well? (with Elise Bean)

Podcast: Why Is Congressional Oversight Important, and How Can It Be Done Well? (with Elise Bean)

Test Unlisted
Hypocrisy of pro-lifers being anti-LGBTQIA

Hypocrisy of pro-lifers being anti-LGBTQIA

Diversity Inclusion and Belonging
Chipping away at election integrity: 
Virginia joins red state exodus from ERIC

Chipping away at election integrity: Virginia joins red state exodus from ERIC

Big Picture
Video: Honoring Memorial Day

Video: Honoring Memorial Day