1115.org

This should be interesting. The FEC is back to full strength again, albeit without Republican Chairman David Mason, who annoyed George Bush by trying to hold John McCain to FEC rules. This resulted in Bush abruptly withdrawing Mason’s nomination for another term.

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed five nominees for the Federal Election Commission, breaking a prolonged partisan logjam and allowing the agency to resume functioning.

The nominees were confirmed without dissent after drawn-out talks between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and a last-minute hang-up over a demand from Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a campaign finance crusader, to meet with all five nominees.

Though the FEC staff has been at work, the six-member commission has been inactive because it has not had a quorum to conduct business. The commission is the agency that regulates federal elections and campaign finance matters.

“Our nation’s campaign finance watchdog was off the beat,” Reid said.

The newly confirmed commissioners are Democrats Cynthia L. Bauerly of Minnesota and Steven T. Walther of Nevada, along with Republicans Caroline C. Hunter of Florida, Donald F. McGahn of the District of Columbia and Matthew S. Petersen of Utah.

McConnell called the action “long overdue,” adding that the agency “can now resume its critical role of enforcing election laws and ensuring that this election season is fair and equitable to all who are involved.”
[...]
The commission consists of three Democratic and three Republican appointees. Any commission action requires a four-vote majority, no matter what size the quorum.

Since the beginning of the year, the commission has only had two members: Republican Chairman David Mason and Democrat Ellen Weintraub.

Earlier this month, President Bush decided to withdraw Mason’s nomination, prompting a protest from Reid and from watchdog groups.

Mason has on few occasions voted with Democrats on regulatory matters. Earlier this year, he angered officials in Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign by raising questions about a loan McCain obtained and by informing the campaign that it needed a vote of the commission before withdrawing from the primary’s public financing system. Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee filed a complaint with the FEC over McCain’s loan and on Tuesday it sued in federal court to compel the FEC to investigate the matter.

McCain has another matter before the commission. He plans to accept $85 million in public money for his general election campaign — a step that requires the approval of the commission. Without an operating FEC, McCain would be unable to collect the money.

Now that there’s a quorum again, the FEC can set about addressing whether McCain has cheerfully broken campaign finance laws by spending more than $56,757,500 during the primary season. Having first opted in to public financing, McCain unilaterally declared that he had opted out, and proceeded to exceed the spending limit. He did this even though FEC chairman David Mason informed him in writing that he is legally locked into the public financing system, and bound by the $56,757,500 limit, until the FEC approves his request to opt out, something the FEC has been unable to do since it lacked a quorum.

The really interesting part is that FEC approval of McCain’s request is hardly automatic. David Mason has already gone on record with the view that McCain’s “too-clever-by-half $4 million bank loan in December” may disqualify him from opting out of public financing for the primaries. If I’m reading the rules right (“Any commission action requires a four-vote majority”), McCain’s opt-out request gets approved only if five of the six commissioners now disagree with Mason, and vote to approve the opt-out. If even two commissioners are swayed by Mason’s argument, John “Campaign Finance Reform” McCain will be found to be in deliberate violation of campaign finance laws, laws he was warned about in writing but chose to violate anyway.

At least that will mean he actually lived up to his “maverick” billing. Unfortunately, he will have done so in true George Bush fashion, by deciding that the laws don’t apply to him.