• 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
Follow
Contributors

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

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

Your Take: Religious beliefs

Our Staff
03 February

Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Rabbi Charles Savenor
03 February

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Our Staff
03 February

Ron DeSantis and the rise of political racism

Lawrence Goldstone
02 February

Curriculum regulations and book bans: Modern day anti-literacy laws?

Katherine Kapustka
02 February

Podcast: 2024 Senate: Democrats have a lot of defending to do

Our Staff
02 February
Videos

Video: The dignity index

Our Staff

Video: The Supreme Court and originalism

Our Staff

Video: How the baby boom changed American politics

Our Staff

Video: What the speakership election tells us about the 118th Congress webinar

Our Staff

Video: We need more bipartisan commitment to democracy: Pennsylvania governor

Our Staff

Video: Meet the citizen activists championing primary reform

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Our Staff
03 February

Podcast: 2024 Senate: Democrats have a lot of defending to do

Our Staff
02 February

Podcast: Collage: The promise of Black History Month

Our Staff
01 February

Podcast: Separating news from noise

Our Staff
30 January
Recommended
Your Take: Religious beliefs

Your Take: Religious beliefs

Your Take
Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Civic Ed
Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Podcasts
Video: The dignity index

Video: The dignity index

Ron DeSantis and the rise of political racism

Ron DeSantis and the rise of political racism

Big Picture
Curriculum regulations and book bans: Modern day anti-literacy laws?

Curriculum regulations and book bans: Modern day anti-literacy laws?

Big Picture