The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is all dressed up without a quorum and no place to go and directly or indirectly is being used as a pawn to gum up the works in the funding of a Presidential campaign. This Commission was created by Congress to administer and enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). This is the law regulating the financing of federal elections. The FEC is supposed to be an independent agency with one of its duties to oversee public funding used in Presidential elections. It is supposed to clear up matters of funding of Presidential Campaigns not gum them up.
It is supposed to have six members and like other Federal agencies the President appoints the members and no more than three members can be from the same political party. A majority thus must be four votes for action. What is becoming highly comical and sad at the same time is that the Commission was set up to encourage nonpartisan decisions, yet only two members remain and the Democrats in the Senate are stalling appointments over one Republican, so the Republicans are now holding up the Democrat nominees.
Now the fun part begins. John McCain is seeking a time sensitive ruling from the FEC. Apparently, he applied for public funding, has not accepted public funding, and depending on who you talk to he either pledged the security of federal public financing to borrow money from a bank or he did no such thing. He now wants the freedom to raise funds and to spend as he wishes. The FEC is supposed to rule on this type of contentious matter in a nonpartisan way to keep the campaigns clean and keep the election fair. Howard Dean, the DNC Chair, is getting his skivvies in an uproar over this attempt by John McCain to move to private funding, yet the Republicans say Dean attempted very much the same thing when he ran for President. This gets even better.
The reason John McCain wants the freedom to raise money to spend as he sees fit is he wants to battle the large war chest of Barack Obama. John McCain has asked the FEC for a ruling but he cannot get it because there are not enough members for a quorum or to get four votes for a ruling. Here it comes! One of the prominent Democrats creating the stalemate in the Senate on the consent of appointees is Barack Obama. Senator Obama has his reasons, and his reasons appear on the surface to be unrelated to Senator McCain. Yet the Commission cannot enforce the law, render opinions, and it is powerless to act during a Presidential campaign for which it was primarily created by Congress. Source: an article “Election Agency Lacks Quorum To Rule on Key Issues This Year” in the Wall Street Journal,
And according to this article the decision on the financing for John McCain may go to a Federal court for a decision.
Remember the FEC is supposed to be the bi-partisan commission set up by Congress that rules on matters concerning election law and public money campaign financing. Someone needs to explain to me how a Senator who is running for President can impede the functioning of this Commission and prevent it from providing nonpartisan guidance and rulings to another Senator who is running for President and who will likely be the Senator’s opponent in the fall election.
The very act of both parties gumming up the works of the FEC is an example of the broken government that Barack Obama says he wishes to fix. Remember he wants change and no more of the same old, same old. Yet now he is a principal cause of the same old, same old preventing a nonpartisan opinion of how to handle this election funding matter. If we really want change – change Congress, all 468 seats up for election this fall.
