Reform Groups Oppose Effort by Rep. Miller to Press for Premature FEC Action on Controversial Proposal to Undermine Enforcement
In a letter sent today to FEC Chair Ellen L. Weintraub, reform groups expressed strong opposition to the position taken by Representative Candice Miller (R-MI), Chairwoman of the House Administration Committee, in which she criticized the FEC for failing to adopt an agency Enforcement Manual and urged the Commission to act promptly on the matter.
The reform groups sending the letter include Americans for Campaign Reform, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Campaign Legal Center, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Democracy 21, Demos, the League of Women Voters, Public Citizen, Sunlight Foundation and U.S. PIRG.
According to the letter to Chair Weintraub:
As we stated in a July 19, 2013 letter to Commissioners, we believe that the FEC should not consider adoption of the agency’s Enforcement Manual, and whether to accept proposed changes to the General Counsel’s draft of the Manual, until the two recently nominated Commissioners have been confirmed by the Senate. Once that occurs the FEC will again have a full complement of six Commissioners – including three Commissioners chosen by Republicans and three Commissioners chosen by Democrats.
The makeup of the FEC is currently unbalanced because of a vacancy in one of the Democratic seats. Given that the Senate Rules Committee has held hearings on the two pending FEC nominees, and the nominations appear to be non-controversial, there is every reason to believe their confirmations will occur in the near future and the imbalance will be ended.
Waiting until there are six Commissioners to act on the Enforcement Manual will ensure that decisions on the Manual will not be made on a partisan basis. These decisions include the major changes proposed to the General Counsel’s draft by the three Republican Commissioners
According to the letter:
We believe that Representative Miller is wrong in urging you and the Commission to vote on the Enforcement Manual during the window of time in which one party holds a temporary partisan majority on the Commission. Representative Miller’s position goes against the very premise of the way in which the agency has long been structured, which is to require bipartisan support for agency actions.
We believe that once the two new Commissioners are seated the FEC should consider the agency Enforcement Manual. But as spelled out in our letter of July 19th, we strongly disagree with key changes in the Enforcement Manual that have been proposed by the three Republican Commissioners.
These proposed changes would hobble the ability of the General Counsel’s office to work with other federal enforcement agencies, and would require the General Counsel staff to willfully blind itself to publicly available information in making recommendation to the Commissioners on whether to undertake enforcement investigations. These proposals would seriously undermine effective enforcement of the nation’s campaign finance laws.
The Enforcement Manual, and any proposed changes to it, should be considered by the Commission only after there is a full complement of six Commissioners to act on the matter and should only be adopted only if four Commissioners vote to do so.
The letter concluded:
The Enforcement Manual, and any proposed changes to it, should be considered by the Commission only after there is a full complement of six Commissioners to act on the matter and should be adopted only if four Commissioners vote to do so.
Scheduling the matter for a vote now, absent six commissioners, is tantamount to ceding control of future agency enforcement procedures to a partisan decision made by just three Commissioners.
We strongly urge you and the Commission not to take such ill-advised and inappropriate action. We strongly urge that no consideration of the Enforcement Manual take place until the pending nominees are seated and the Commission is at full strength with six Commissioners.
