[EL] Colbert

[Smith, Brad]

 Once the Colbert circus leaves the FEC tomorrow, the agency will go back to its usual partisan deadlocks and Republican Commissioner obstructionism, and be as good as dead <https://legacy.capital.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://electionlawblog.org/?s=as%2Bgood%2Bas%2Bdead> .
 
- Or as some would call it, relatively rare partisan deadlocks (that's just fact) and Democratic obstructionism.
 
Meanwhile, the Commission is alive enough to enforce contribution limits and disclosure rules, keep political actors scared to death about "coordination," administer the wasteful and useless presidential financing system, and generally gum up the system enough so that Paul Colbert had to hire three high priced lawyers to figure out what he is legally allowed to do in terms of political advocacy.
 
"As good as dead?" To those who actually have to deal with the FEC, it's a pretty damn live agency.
 
Bradley A. Smith
Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
303 E. Broad St.
Columbus, OH 43215
(614) 236-6317
http://www.law.capital.edu/Faculty/Bios/bsmith.asp

________________________________

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu on behalf of Rick Hasen
Sent: Thu 6/30/2011 12:52 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] Colbert



Breaking News: Stephen Colbert Brings Temporary Bipartisan Harmony to the FEC <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=19978>  

Posted on June 29, 2011 <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=19978>  by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>  

An eagle-eyed reader notes a new item <http://fec.gov/agenda/2011/mtgdoc_1138b.pdf>  posted in connection with tomorrow's meeting of the FEC: amendments to Draft A <http://fec.gov/agenda/2011/mtgdoc_1138a_and_b.pdf>  of the Colbert advisory opinion, proposed by five of the six commissioners (all besides Republican Commissioner McGahn).  This signals that things will go very smoothly (and I would guess rather quickly) at tomorrow's FEC meeting.

The draft comes closer to the position of the Democratic Commissioners rather than the Republican Commissioners' initial position, and it seems to lessen the possibility that the Colbert opinion could have (inadvertently) opened up a wide expansion of the "press exemption" to further undermine campaign finance laws.

Why would the Republican commissioners have agreed to this?  The likely reason, as my tipster suggests and I agree, is the negative publicity that would come to the Republican commissioners had the FEC deadlocked and not issued an AO resolving all of Colbert's issues.

But don't worry.  Once the Colbert circus leaves the FEC tomorrow, the agency will go back to its usual partisan deadlocks and Republican Commissioner obstructionism, and be as good as dead <http://electionlawblog.org/?s=as+good+as+dead> .

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Rick Hasen
Visiting Professor
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
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http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html

William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org <http://electionlawblog.org/> 

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