It's not that the Commission "failed to reach consensus," except in the way that we might say that, "in Christian Action Network v. FEC, the 4th Circuit failed to reach consensus on the reason why the FEC's action against CAN was proper." In fact, the Commission voted down the regulatory proposals on a series of 4-2, bi-partisan majority votes.  But not entirely - it did pass new allocation rules.  It may be worth noting that the allocation rules were originally defeated on a 3-3 vote, at which time Fred Wertheimer told the New York Times that that was the most important of the regulatory proposals.  Now that they've been approved, how soon we all forget...
 
Bradley A. Smith
Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
 

________________________________

From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu on behalf of Trevor Potter
Sent: Thu 3/30/2006 1:27 PM
To: Rick Hasen; election-law
Subject: RE: correcton




In fact, the FEC voted in 2004 to terminate the 527 rulemaking, having failed to reach consensus on any of the regulatory proposals. Thus, it would have to put out a new Notice if it goes that route.
trevor Potter

        -----Original Message-----
        From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu on behalf of Rick Hasen
        Sent: Thu 3/30/2006 12:10 PM
        To: election-law
        Cc:
        Subject: correcton
       
       
        Regarding my post:
       
       

        "Judge Grants Partial Motion for Summary Judgment in Shays II Case"...

         
        UPDATE: A few readers (who have much greater knowledge of the day-to-day business of the FEC than I do) wrote to ask about my statement above that I believe the FEC is working on 527 rules. My memory on this point was faulty. Here <http://www.fec.gov/law/law_rulemakings.shtml>  is the FEC rulemaking page, and there is not any rulemaking listed there for when 527s should be considered as political committees. I had seemed to recall that when the FEC failed to enact rules for 527s in the summer of 2004, it put this on the agenda to consider after the 2004 elections. But that appears to be wrong.
       
        --
        Rick Hasen
        William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
        Loyola Law School
        919 Albany Street
        Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
        (213)736-1466 - voice
        (213)380-3769 - fax
        rick.hasen@lls.edu
        http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
        http://electionlawblog.org


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