Asides

Federal Election Commission Mess

Editorial

The Campaign Monitor Goes Missing

 

Published: March 26, 2008

Moneywise, this is an eerily liberating time to be running for president or Congress. Donations are being harvested and spent at a record rate, while the Federal Election Commission — the campaign’s designated referee — has been reduced to a nonentity.

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Times Topics: Federal Election Commission

The panel has been unable to meet and function this year because it no longer has enough members to do business. There are four vacancies on the six-member commission, and a political standoff in the Senate centered on a hack Republican nominee is blocking attempts to fill them.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate’s Republican leader, has insisted that the four seats be filled as a single package on one vote, not separate votes on the merits of the individuals. Democrats object to one Republican nominee, Hans von Spakovsky, a notorious partisan who built a record at the Justice Department as an aggressive G.O.P. booster undermining voting rights for minorities and the poor.

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