[EL] ELB News and Commentary 4/4/19

Thu Apr 4 08:36:24 PDT 2019

SCOTUSBlog Running Symposium on Census Citizenship Question Case<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104551>
Posted on April 4, 2019 8:33 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104551> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Posts being collected here<https://www.scotusblog.com/category/special-features/symposia-before-oral-arguments-of-october-term-2018/symposium-before-the-oral-argument-in-department-of-commerce-v-new-york/>.
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Posted in census litigation<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=125>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

Stacey Abrams Reiterates Language of Georgia Governor’s Election Being “Stolen”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104548>
Posted on April 4, 2019 8:26 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104548> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

From her speech via Axios<https://www.axios.com/stacy-abrams-calls-georgias-gop-governor-architect-voter-suppression-e94f4dec-42e9-4057-8d6e-6b6d494c29a1.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=1100>:

So on November 6, I said at the podium we were not going to declare anything till every vote was counted. And on November 16, I decided to acknowledge the states of the election but I refused to concede. Because here’s the thing, concession means to say something is right and true and proper. I am a good lawyer, and I understand that the law of the land said that Brian Kemp became the governor that day. And I acknowledge that, but you can’t trick me into saying it was right. And you can’t shame me into saying what happened should’ve happened because in the state of Georgia black people faced hours long lines of up to four hours waiting to cast their ballots. 53,000 people were held hostage by a system that a federal judge said was racially discriminatory. 53,000 people. 90% of whom were people of color and 70% of whom were black. I live in a state where 1.5 million people got purged including 600,000 right before my opponent threw his name into the ring. They closed 214 polling places. They rejected absentee ballots at an unheard of rate. They said if your signature didn’t match then your vote doesn’t count. Well my signature doesn’t match from Kroger to CVS, but my citizenship doesn’t change. And so in response to what I believe was a stolen election, and I’m not saying they stole it from me. They stole it from the voters of Georgia. I cannot prove empirically that I would’ve won, but we will never know. And so what I demanded on November 16 was a fair fight because you see voter suppression is as old as America. It is baked into our DNA, but so is our ability to fight back. That is also who we are. We are a nation constructed of people who understand our rights have to be fought for every generation and sometimes when we fight we think we won. We just got a pause, and we’ve got to come back efforts redoubled because those that who want us to be silenced won’t stop till we shut so we have to shout louder and longer and stronger than they’ve ever expected.

(my emphasis)

In another recent speech, Abrams said<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104197>: “I did win my election, I just didn’t get to have the job.”’

Earlier from me: Why Democrats Should Not Call the Georgia Governor’s Race ‘Stolen’<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/georgia-stacey-abrams-brian-kemp-election-not-stolen.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru>, Slate, Nov. 18, 2018
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Republicans trigger ‘nuclear option’ to speed Trump nominees”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104546>
Posted on April 4, 2019 8:18 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104546> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico<https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/03/senate-republicans-trigger-nuclear-option-to-speed-trump-nominees-1253118>:

Senate Republicans used the “nuclear option” Wednesday to unilaterally reduce debate time on most presidential nominees, the latest in a series of changes to the fabric of the Senate to dilute the power of the minority.

The move by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) immediately paves the way to expedite confirmations of President Donald Trump’s judicial and executive branch picks and comes amid deep GOP frustration with Democrats’ delays. Future presidents will benefit, too, though McConnell and Trump stand to gain inordinately as they seek to fill 130 District Court vacancies during the 18 months before the 2020 elections.

The nuclear option — a change of the Senate rules by a simple majority — gained its name because it was seen as an explosive maneuver that would leave political fallout for some time to come. But it’s now been deployed three times in just six years amid continuous partisan warfare over nominations.
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Posted in legislation and legislatures<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>

“Another GOP Voter Fraud Claim Falls Apart, and Democrats See an Opening”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104544>
Posted on April 4, 2019 8:15 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104544> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Eliza Newlin Carney:<https://prospect.org/article/another-gop-voter-fraud-claim-falls-apart-and-democrats-see-opening>

The latest overblown Republican claims of voter fraud have been thoroughly debunked, now that a federal judge has blocked<https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Texas-settles-lawsuits-over-voter-purge-program-13732909.php> a massive voter purge in Texas, and accused GOP election officials<https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/2019-02/61-main.pdf> there of creating a “mess” that intimidated vulnerable voters.

But instead of eating crow, Republicans are doubling down. In Texas, even as a federal judge intervened, Republican state senators were advancing a bill<https://texascivilrightsproject.org/sb9-committee-passage/> that would erect fresh barriers to registration and voting. And President Donald Trump, having tweeted in January that the supposed illegal voting in Texas was “the tip of the iceberg” told GOP officials this week<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104507> that they needed to be “careful” in upcoming elections, “because I don’t like the way the votes are being tallied.”

Nevertheless, GOP voter fraud claims and voter restriction efforts could come back to haunt Republicans in 2020. In Texas, the debacle that began when GOP Acting Secretary of State David Whitley announced erroneously in January that 95,000 noncitizens had registered in Texas, and 58,000 had voted, removed more than a dozen eligible voters<https://www.texastribune.org/2019/03/28/texas-voter-roll-review-under-investigation-us-house-committee/> from the rolls. (They were later reinstated.) Latino voting rights advocates, who successfully sued<https://lulac.org/news/pr/Texas_Federal_Judge_Orders_Stop_To_Voter_Purge/> to block the Texas purge, predict a voter backlash<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inaccurate-claims-of-noncitizen-voting-in-texas-reflect-a-growing-trend-in-republican-states/2019/02/06/af376fb0-2994-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html?utm_term=.1a07df1fa1bd>.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“John Kasich forms dark money political group with other prominent never-Trumpers”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104542>
Posted on April 4, 2019 8:10 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104542> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.<https://www.cleveland.com/politics/2019/04/john-kasich-forms-dark-money-political-group-with-other-prominent-never-trumpers.html>
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

“For independent voters, California lawmakers seek to end ballot confusion”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104540>
Posted on April 4, 2019 8:09 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104540> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

John Myers<https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-primary-confusion-independent-voters-20190402-story.html> for the LAT:

In the days leading up to California’s primary three years ago, the complaints from unaffiliated independent voters started pouring in. They were promised<https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-primary-results-confusing-20160711-snap-story.html> they could vote in the closely watched Democratic race for the White House, but were handed a ballot without any presidential candidates.

That shouldn’t happen again next year, if a new proposal making its way through the Legislature has its intended effect.
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Posted in political parties<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>, primaries<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=32>

“House Panel Seeks to Interview Top Organizer of Trump Inauguration”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104538>
Posted on April 4, 2019 8:01 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104538> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WSJ<https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-sign-of-expanding-probe-house-panel-seeks-to-interview-top-organizer-of-trump-inauguration-11554311027?emailToken=b8825929597937e0cdcaa97de01a726feI/M8cEcGolhbni/pah/ZtUM7+u1fFuq5dzhKghei14saiU5Q5tyO43rX0UJswHHfZ56genePrV1FcvA6KW/99UNPGcwWYsAEltUZCMV+b6OdFN+H90jZrIX4B6w/fWK15U57MIqKdszjLyGlbtBKm0ft62pBZooChwBxy8g+LQ%3D&reflink=article_imessage_share>:

The House Intelligence Committee is seeking an interview with and documents from a top organizer on President Trump’s inaugural committee, according to people familiar with the request, signaling that Congress is expanding its probe of how the fund raised and spent more than $100 million.

The March 19 request from the House Intelligence Committee was disclosed in a letter sent to a lawyer for the inaugural committee this week by an attorney for Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to first lady Melania Trump who served as a producer and a vendor for the inauguration. The inaugural fund hasn’t been contacted by the House panel, according to one of the people familiar with the matter….

The House Intelligence Committee sought from Ms. Wolkoff an array of materials, including matters related to contacts between the inaugural fund and foreign entities, specifically in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the person familiar with the matter said.

The committee also requested information on efforts by foreign entities to provide gifts or things of value to Mr. Trump, as well as his son-in-law and daughter, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, and their affiliated businesses, the people said. It also sought records related to the inaugural committee’s donors and contractors, guest lists for inaugural events, and information on any payments made directly from donors to vendors, the people said.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

“Two Birds, One Stone: The Supreme Court’s Shot to Fix the Political Question Doctrine and Political Gerrymandering”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104536>
Posted on April 4, 2019 7:57 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104536> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Mike Parsons blogs.<https://moderndemocracyblog.com/2019/04/04/two-birds-one-stone-the-supreme-courts-shot-to-fix-the-political-question-doctrine-and-political-gerrymandering/>
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

“Poll Finds Overwhelming, Bipartisan Support for Election Reform Measures Designed to Make it Easier for Citizens to Register and Vote”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104534>
Posted on April 4, 2019 7:53 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104534> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Why Tuesday? releases new polling results<https://whytuesday.org/news/2019/4/3/poll-finds-overwhelming-bipartisan-support-for-election-reform-measures-designed-to-make-it-easier-for-citizens-to-register-and-vote?rq=news>.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

“You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do it instead.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104532>
Posted on April 4, 2019 7:45 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104532> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

USA Today<https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/04/03/abortion-gun-laws-stand-your-ground-model-bills-conservatives-liberal-corporate-influence-lobbyists/3162173002/>:

Each year, state lawmakers across the U.S. introduce thousands of bills dreamed up and written by corporations, industry groups and think tanks.

Disguised as the work of lawmakers, these so-called “model” bills get copied in one state Capitol after another, quietly advancing the agenda of the people who write them.

A two-year investigation by USA TODAY, The Arizona Republic  and the Center for Public Integrity reveals for the first time the extent to which special interests have infiltrated state legislatures using model legislation.

USA TODAY and the Republic found at least 10,000 bills almost entirely copied from model legislation were introduced nationwide in the past eight years, and more than 2,100 of those bills were signed into law.
The investigation examined nearly 1 million bills in all 50 states and Congress using a computer algorithm developed to detect similarities in language. That search – powered by the equivalent of 150 computers that ran nonstop for months – compared known model legislation with bills introduced by lawmakers.

The phenomenon of copycat legislation is far larger. In a separate analysis, the Center for Public Integrity identified tens of thousands of bills with identical phrases, then traced the origins of that language in dozens of those bills across the country.

Model bills passed into law have made it harder for injured consumers to sue corporations. They’ve called for taxes on sugar-laden drinks. They’ve limited access to abortion and restricted the rights of protesters.
In all, these copycat bills amount to the nation’s largest, unreported special-interest campaign, driving agendas in every statehouse and touching nearly every area of public policy.

The investigation reveals that fill-in-the-blank bills have in some states supplanted the traditional approach of writing legislation from scratch. They have become so intertwined with the lawmaking process that the nation’s top sponsor of copycat legislation, a member of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, claimed to have signed on to 72 such bills without knowing or questioning their origin.

For lawmakers, copying model legislation is an easy way to get fully formed bills to put their names on, while building relationships with lobbyists and other potential campaign donors.

For special interests seeking to stay under the radar, model legislation also offers distinct advantages. Copycat bills don’t appear on expense reports, or campaign finance forms. They don’t require someone to register as a lobbyist or sign in at committee hearings. But once injected into the lawmaking process, they can go viral, spreading state to state, executing an agenda to the letter.
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Posted in legislation and legislatures<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>

One of the Citizenship Question Census Endgames: Exclude Non-Citizens from Redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104530>
Posted on April 3, 2019 2:49 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104530> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Tierney Sneed:<https://twitter.com/Tierney_Megan/status/1113558736436649984>
View image on Twitter<https://twitter.com/Tierney_Megan/status/1113558736436649984/photo/1>
[View image on Twitter]<https://twitter.com/Tierney_Megan/status/1113558736436649984/photo/1>
[https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/557550168581472256/LNyrbzzq_bigger.jpeg]<https://twitter.com/Tierney_Megan>
<https://twitter.com/Tierney_Megan>
Tierney Sneed<https://twitter.com/Tierney_Megan>
✔@Tierney_Megan<https://twitter.com/Tierney_Megan>

<https://twitter.com/Tierney_Megan/status/1113558736436649984>

Catching up on the amicus briefs filed in the Census case at SCOTUS and, oh hey look at that, Ed Blum—who spearheaded the lawsuit that gutted the Voting Rights Act— wants a citizenship question so noncitizens can be excluded in redistricting https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-966/91010/20190306184903400_18-966_Amicus_Brief.pdf …<https://t.co/aMd6TIqilf>
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47<https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1113558736436649984>
2:47 PM - Apr 3, 2019<https://twitter.com/Tierney_Megan/status/1113558736436649984>
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56 people are talking about this<https://twitter.com/Tierney_Megan/status/1113558736436649984>

Twitter Ads info and privacy<https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175256>
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>

“‘The Administration of Democracy’: Announcing the George Mason Law Review’s Second Annual Administrative Law Symposium—and Calling for Papers”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104528>
Posted on April 3, 2019 1:42 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104528> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The George Mason conference<https://medium.com/@adlawcenter/the-administration-of-democracy-e61d7ecfaa31> on October 4 looks super interesting and sure to be exciting with Bob Bauer and Don McGahn as the keynoters.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Civil Rights Groups Prevail in Lawsuit to Require Secretary of State to Improve Voter Registration Opportunities”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104526>
Posted on April 3, 2019 1:35 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104526> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Press release via email:

On Friday, civil rights groups prevailed in their lawsuit against Secretary of State Alex Padilla to expand voter registration at agencies in the state that serve people on public assistance and individuals with disabilities. San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Ethan P. Schulman ruled Padilla must require voter registration at additional agencies and contractors serving Californians throughout the state. More than 1.8 million Californians will benefit from the ruling.

 The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California (ACLU) and Disability Rights California (DRC) filed suit against Secretary Padilla because of his failure to designate state and local offices that provide public assistance or are state funded offices primarily serving people with disabilities, known as “Voter Registration Agencies” (VRAs).  Secretary Padilla is required to identify offices that meet these definitions and notify them that they are required to provide voter registration opportunities under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and California’s Election code.

According to the decision, the following offices must now offer voter registration opportunities:

-County offices administering General Assistance or General Relief Programs, which receive close to 300,000 applications each year;
-Financial aid programs administered by the California Student Aid Commission, which received over 1.5 million applications last year;
-Private entities providing services under contract on behalf of VRAs.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Black leaders blast Dem war on super PACs”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104524>
Posted on April 3, 2019 11:45 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104524> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico:<https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/03/black-donors-super-pacs-1250892?nname=playbook-pm&nid=0000015a-dd3e-d536-a37b-dd7fd8af0000&nrid=0000014e-f109-dd93-ad7f-f90d0def0000&nlid=964328>

Top black donors and operatives are calling on fellow Democrats to abandon their push against super PACs, arguing that one of Democrats’ most popular 2020 talking points will ultimately cut off much-needed resources for candidates of color.

In a letter obtained by POLITICO, The Collective PAC — which helps elect black candidates to office — asked major liberal groups like Indivisible and Democracy for America to stop calling for Democratic presidential contenders to distance themselves from single-candidatesuper PACs. Such groups play an important role in electing candidates of color, they argued, especially in primaries, when the Democratic establishment has often overlooked black contenders and left it to outside donors to bolster their campaigns.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

“How FDR’s Court-Packing Plan Set Progressive Policies Back by 25 Years”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104517>
Posted on April 3, 2019 8:41 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104517> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

Over at the Balkinization blog, I have a post<https://balkin.blogspot.com/2019/04/how-fdrs-court-packing-plan-set.html> with historical perspective on emerging debates among some Democrats over whether, if they have the political power to do so after 2020, they ought to increase the size of the Supreme Court. Here are some excerpts:

The circumstances favoring FDR’s Court-packing plan would seem to be about as favorable as might be imagined, yet FDR not only lost the Court-packing battle, that loss was politically devastating for the New Deal overall.
          First, let’s recall just how breathtaking and profound the Court’s conflict was in that era with FDR’s and Congress’ policies.  The major highlights are widely known and still taught in law schools – the Court’s invalidation of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) or the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA).
          But here is a sense of the range of national and state legislation and presidential action the Court held unconstitutional in one 17-month period starting in January, 1935: the NIRA, both its Codes of Fair Competition and the president’s power to control the flow of contraband oil across state lines; the Railroad Retirement Act; the Frazier-Lemke Farm Mortgage Moratorium Act; the effort of the president to get the administrative agencies to reflect his political vision (Humphrey’s Executor); the Home Owners’ Loan Act; a federal tax on liquor dealers; the AAA; efforts of the new SEC’s attempt to subpoena records to enforce the securities laws; the Bituminous Coal Conservation  Act; the Municipal Bankruptcy Act, which Congress passed to enable local governments to use the bankruptcy process; and, perhaps most dramatically, in Morehead v. Tipaldo, minimum-wage laws on the books in a third of the states, in some cases, for decades.  Some of these decisions have withstood the test of time, but most, of course, have not.   . . .

Second, FDR was in as strong a political position as any President has ever been in the modern era.  He had just won 60.8% of the popular vote, the largest popular majority ever at the time.  In the electoral college, he had won 98.5% of the electoral votes (all but the eight votes of ME and VT).  The Court-packing bill was the first piece of legislation FDR put forward after this massive 1936 electoral triumph.  And the 1936 elections were a sweep for the Democrats in the House and Senate, too.  In the Senate, the Democrats held 76 Senate seats, Republicans just 16 (sorry AK and HW, you weren’t states yet).  In the House, Democrats had a 334-88 advantage. . . .

Yet despite FDR’s popularity and the Court’s actions, almost as soon as he announced the Court-packing bill, two-thirds of the newspapers that had endorsed FDR came out vociferously against the plan.  This response was geographically widespread, bipartisan, and intense.  The most common charge was that FDR was seeking “dictatorial powers,” a particularly resonant charge in that era.  . . .

Why was FDR’s decision to engage Court-packing so destructive politically for him and the rest of his domestic agenda?  The simple answer is that, even for the most popular President in modern political history –at the zenith of his popularity — changing the size of the Court for political reasons was widely viewed as a dangerous form of political over-reaching.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when FDR lost the Court-packing fight, he didn’t just lose that one battle:  that battle was politically catastrophic for much of the rest of his domestic political agenda.  Indeed, the fight over Court packing largely killed the progressive legislative agenda until the 1960s.  As FDR’s second vice president, Henry Wallace, observed in looking back at these events: “The whole New Deal really went up in smoke as a result of the Supreme Court fight.”  The next major item on FDR’s agenda had been national health-care; after the Court-packing fight, FDR felt forced to drop the issue.  As a Fortune magazine poll in July 1937 put it: “The Supreme Court struggle had cut into the President’s popularity as no other issue ever had.”  The Republican Party had been declared virtually dead in the wake of the 1936 elections.  But in the 1938 mid-terms<https://ashbrook.org/publications/oped-busch-06-1938/>, the Democratic Party lost 71 House seats, 6 Senate seats, and 12 governorships; nationwide, the two parties divided the congressional vote almost evenly (all the more remarkable because the Democratic Party had a near monopoly in the South). . . .

But if debates about Court-packing move from campaign rhetoric to potential legislation, it is worth being aware that when the most popular president in history, with a Congress his party controlled overwhelmingly, clashed with the Court that was the most aggressive in American history in pervasively challenging national political power, FDR not only failed to get Court-packing legislation enacted, the effort generated a political firestorm that cost FDR the rest of his domestic agenda.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“At the Federal Election Commission, No Watchdog for the Watchdog”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104514>
Posted on April 3, 2019 7:31 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104514> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Dave Levinthal:<https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/fec-elections-watchdog/>

When Beverly Davis began disqualifying numerous applicants for the Federal Election Commission’s vacant inspector general job — including a long-time staff attorney for Commissioner Matthew Petersen — agency superiors protested.

Accusations and allegations flew. A turf war ensued.

Davis said she was “attacked, retaliated against and bullied” into reassessing the qualifications of applicants she deemed subpar. After being overruled, Davis closed the job opening for the position — the agency’s internal watchdog — and resigned from her job as a senior human resources specialist, forcing the FEC to restart its search. The position has now been open for more than two years.

The May 2018 fracas, described in interviews and a series of internal emails obtained by the Center for Public Integrity<https://publicintegrity.org/>, is but one of several stumbles that have helped render the FEC’s inspector general office effectively nonfunctional since November, when the lone deputy inspector general quit.

This matters because the inspector general office investigates waste, fraud and abuse at the FEC, including accusations against commissioners. The bipartisan FEC is itself responsible for enforcing and regulating national campaign finance laws but has long been hamstrung by ideological divisions<https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/new-hope-new-problem-will-the-federal-election-commission-shut-down/>, low staff morale<https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/democrats-plan-aggressive-oversight-of-federal-election-commission/> and other long-standing vacancies<https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/a-dubious-anniversary-for-the-federal-election-commission/>, including two of six FEC commissioner slots.

So the lack of an inspector general means no one is watching the election watchdog — at a time when few feel the FEC is functioning effectively, even as its missions are evermore important. The FEC’s struggles are set against the backdrop of an accelerating<https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/veterans-charity-raises-millions-to-help-those-whove-served-but-telemarketers-are-pocketing-most-of-it/> chase for presidential campaign cash and prominent political money scandals — alleged porn actress hush-money payments<https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/stormy-daniels-payoff-an-illegal-contribution-fec-ruling-could-take-years/> and foreign<https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/will-federal-officials-further-regulate-online-political-ads-too-soon-to-tell/> infiltration<https://theintercept.com/2019/03/11/intercept-investigation-leads-to-record-fines-over-foreign-campaign-contributions/> among them.
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Posted in federal election commission<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>

--
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>
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