The Federal Election Commission (FEC), the agency that’s supposed to enforce U.S. election law, has the power to stop some of the most corrupting effects of Citizens United.
And it has done nothing.
So FEC commissioners Ann Ravel and Ellen Weintraub decided to do something. To spur their gridlocked agency into action, they took the unusual and unprecedented step of formally petitioning their own agency.
But their petition was REJECTED by right-wing FEC commissioners who claimed that, for the purposes of the formal petitioning process, corporations are people, but FEC commissioners are not.
Specifically, the formal petition calls for an end to: undisclosed election spending, coordination between super PACs and candidates, and foreign money’s influence on U.S. elections.
When the Republican commissioners rejected her petition, Commissioner Weintraub was understandably astounded.
“I cannot believe that you are actually going to take the position that I am not a person,” she said during the hearing when the dispute erupted. “A corporation is a person, but I’m not a person?”
The impasse threatened to prevent the formal petition from being filed. Commissioner Weintraub looked at Public Citizen lobbyist and money-in-politics expert Craig Holman, who was sitting in the audience at the FEC hearing, and asked: “Would someone from the public be willing to file the petition?”
So Craig Holman and Public Citizen signed the petition and filed it within the hour.
The commonsense reforms included in Ravel and Weintraub’s petition enjoy broad bipartisan support among the American public.
But the obstinate refusal by any of the FEC’s three Republican commissioners to join with the FEC’s three Democratic commissioners in supporting even modest reforms to address Citizens United has left the agency in nearly permanent gridlock.
CLICK HERE to demand action by the FEC to end: undisclosed election spending, coordination between super PACs and candidates, and foreign money’s influence on U.S. elections.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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