With @FEC Commissioner Hunter resigning, we are heading into November with one of the frontline agencies charged with protecting the integrity of our elections once again immobilized, during a pandemic that has turned the whole campaign on its head. It’s like a perfect storm.
The FEC has been without a quorum for most of the last 10 months. No enforcement of campaign finance laws. No rulemakings. No guidance for candidates who are having to cope with a campaign that has shifted to being largely online.
Meanwhile the Kremlin and other foreign governments are gearing up for a disinformation campaign that could dwarf what we saw in 2016.
I don’t have illusions about the @FEC’s capacity to meet these challenges. The people who work there are incredibly smart and dedicated, but they have been saddled with a dysfunctional leadership structure for a decade. The whole things needs an overhaul. brennancenter.org/our-work/polic…
Nevertheless, the @FEC is what we have, and it sends a truly terrible message for it to be completely MIA at this time.
Last point: this was completely avoidable. Senate Dems put forward a highly qualified nominee many months ago to fill the one vacant D seat on the Commission, but the WH and Senate GOP ignored her.
Instead in May they rammed through a single GOP nominee in a highly partisan process that broke with longstanding tradition. That restored the quorum for all of a month. And here is the result: we are right back to where we started.
Hopefully in the short term the Senate will work to finally fill all of the @FEC’s vacant seats. Over the long term, this one of the critical parts of our democratic infrastructure that needs repair. For more, see: brennancenter.org/our-work/polic…
