In a story that makes our hyperventilating about Trump on the world stage look silly, we absorb this quiver-inducing news. The Vice Chairman of the FEC resigned on Monday, which leaves three active commissioners on a board with six positions. That same commission requires four commissioners to vote upon any action.
With fewer words, the FEC, the election cops, have no badge right now. The FEC cannot reach out and stop, or penalize, any election violations.
The oncoming election in 2020 is the most important presidential election since 1860. We just had an election in which our intelligence agencies noted unprecedented manipulation by a foreign power. We have evidence that the current president is on the take, and under a foreign dictator’s influence. And now, we do not have anyone looking after the rules constraining the candidates for federal office.
Breathe … for me. According to The Hill:
Matthew Petersen, a Republican who has served as a commissioner since 2008, wrote that he will formally step down on Aug. 31.
His departure leaves the agency with only three of the four members required to vote on proposed actions.
“By law, no more than three Commissioners can represent the same political party, and at least four votes are required for any official Commission action,” the FEC wrote on its website. “This structure was created to encourage nonpartisan decisions.”
No problem with “the structure,” or its mission. However, it is currently constructed such that it cannot do any mission. Moreover, the commission had been doing its job with relative competence and integrity, perhaps that was the problem. Because, now, we have no reason to believe that the commission will be in a position to do anything about violations occurring in the next year and a half:
The remaining commissioners are Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat; Commissioner Caroline Hunter, a Republican; and Commissioner Steven Walther, an independent. President Trump nominated Republican attorney Trey Trainor to serve as an FEC commissioner in 2017, but the Senate has not voted on his nomination.
Get that? The commission had four members, and a Republican Trump nominee, yet the Senate still has not added the Trump-appointed nominee from two years ago. One can only conclude that it served Republican interests to require all four current members to vote unanimously. Now that the commission cannot serve any interest, why would anyone think that the Republicans and Election-Violation-King Donald Trump, the one that paid off a porn star with campaign funds, to fill that seat? We still do not have a permanent Secretary of Defense, and somehow Trump is going to nominate, and the Senate approve, a critical fourth member to the FEC?
Hell no.
Which means we will not have anyone oversee the 2020 federal elections.
If that doesn’t scare the ever-living hell out of all of us, we’re not paying close enough attention.
So, let’s delve into possible “explanations” as to why a Republican would step down now, out of the blue, as the federal campaign season just starts to get its legs under it. Is it irresponsible to question whether Peterson was pushed out? Could he have been paid off? Would anyone need to pay him off, given some threats that could have reached him?
It is all crazy, right? Engaging such conspiracy-theory thinking? Except, no, it is not, because it isn’t crazy to worry about such conspiracies in countries that do not function as democracies, who have leaders demonstrating open disdain for democracy, open disdain for the truth, openly on the take (Doral, #MoscowMitch). It becomes normal and mature to question people’s motives and moves in such an environment, irresponsible to not.
Speaking about open disdain for the truth, someone might have determined that the FEC got a little too-police-like in its approach just recently. When Trump claimed – again – just a couple weeks ago that he would have “won” the New Hampshire primary were it not for irregularities:
Weintraub last week pushed back against President Trump’s claims that he would have won New Hampshire during the 2016 election if it wasn’t for voter fraud. In a letter to Trump, she asked for evidence of this voter fraud, telling him that his allegations risk “undermining faith” in U.S. elections.
Weintraub has been quite outspoken about the commissions problems, stating that it was ineffective of late due to “half of the commissioners not believing in the commission’s mission.” It doesn’t take a political science professor to figure out what was meant, given that the commission was made up of two Republicans, a Democrat and Independent.
Now, the commission cannot do anything, mission or not, belief or not, and – most concerningly – rule violation or not.
The media will have to step up and do its public service in exposing whatever corruption it finds. Then the “president” will declare it all fake news.
It is wide open, the Wild West now. Sounds a lot like the unregulated elections in a banana republic, or Russia. It seems to me a little too perfect, a neutered police dog, with insufficient time to elect and confirm anyone else? Yes, a tad too tidy.
God help us.
This is how democracies die. Piece by piece. Right before our eyes.
****
Peace, y’all.
Jason
Sorry, Jason, but your whole premise presupposes our opposition was ever going to play fair. THAT’S the thinking that says you weren’t paying full attention. Even so, how truly hard would it be to get that Trump nominee into this guy’s spot and be done with it? The desired results would be virtually identical from where I’m sitting. Still, all that said, I agree it’s a troubling development, one of a million others. Where I disagree is the idea that it’s part of some master plan.
I have thought through this a little deeper than you think. No, the opposition (and not all of our side, either) was never going to “play fair” but there are limits to what one will do even in lawless actions, if one knows that there is a possible board to which one needs to be accountable.
In terms of what that commission might have done, let’s imagine something uncovered by the media, something incontrovertible, it would be much easier to have to commission unable to function than to have someone denying the sky is blue.
We know there is a big gain in having it done, otherwise the Republs wouldn’t have done it. Self-proving. Also, if it all meant nothing, why not appoint the Trump nominee?
I don’t see the gain…at all. Or do you really think that the whole of the media, which has been vilified by Trump from the start, is just going to stop digging to find the incontrovertible whether that board is functional or not? I also don’t accept the premise of lawless actions being “limited” by anything. That’s the whole point of doing them, after all, and that is why it’s better to have the friendly refs in place in the event that you’re caught. Having no refs just sends the signal that you’ve run out of dupes willing to take the fall for you.
I don’t doubt that you didn’t think it through, Jason. My doubt lies in THEM thinking it through.
When you say “them” it could be anyone from McConnell, to the Russians, to the high tech firms on the Right, to PACs, so out of that group, any of whom could have faced fines and such, there would seem to be someone in that group that could think it through as well as I have.
Now that just sounds silly. Do you think any of the above are scared of FINES? Or jail time that would be so light as to qualify for an overnight stay as compared to hard time? No…the fear of all the above lies in being exposed…especially before it’s time. Crippling the FEC would hinder that but do nothing functionally to stop it. This is compounded if Trump happens to be in the loop on this…no way he could keep that secret.
If it is silly why is it happening? Why wouldn’t McConnell want another Republican vote if it were not important to Republican interests?
McConnell allows votes that help Republicans, he doesn’t allow votes that hurt. So why hasn’t this been taken up?
I think having the FEC out there did have an impact. Maybe not the fines, but the investigative arm.
Besides, to some it is all about destroying democracy, this is another step along the way. I refuse to not see this as a major major sign. Not going to be whistling as the band walks by.
Okay, the investigative arm, I could see. But fines and light jail time have NEVER been much of a deterrent on stopping bad behavior and the usual practice, as I said, is appointing friendly refs to mute such outcomes anyway. They do that in Russia all the time, after all. As to why McConnell hasn’t let that vote happen, hell, I don’t know. Maybe that broken arm of his is futzing with his thought process. Maybe he’s trying to stick it to Trump. Or maybe this guy is a bigger problem in the FEC than out of it and keeping him in limbo is a passive aggressive way to deny the appointment, similar to what happened to Merrick Garland. Point is there are other, more boring explanations for what’s going on than the worst case scenario.
So let us see what happens next before assuming said worst. Anything else is surrendering to panic, which is just as useless as apathy when it comes to detecting danger.
Because it has been discussed that Moscow Mitch is also compromised by The Russians. He has accepted money funneled from Russian oligarchs through the NRA. And so have others accepted money.
Maybe they want to do some election shanagans and don’t want anyone peeping around
Again, THAT’S why you put your guys at the top. No supervision is too big a risk as that may encourage the subordinates to work outside the usual channels.
It is up to Moscow Mitch look at tonight’s news about Deutsche
Jason I want you to be wrong but I fear that you are not. Trump is stupid but his puppet master Putin is not. ALL those secret meetings, really tutorials on how to take down this democracy bit by bit, are now coming into fruition. Pieces of the democratic structure being undermined by people resigning, being pushed out, put in positions for which they are totally unqualified so that all they can do is take orders, so many “acting” positions in key areas of the government, the Intelligence Community and media’s credibility undermined and so on;THIS critical story under reported. Everything adds up to a PLAN to cheat; to steal the 2020 election from the Democratic winner. Our votes won’t matter. Targeted cheating will give traitortrump the victory he desperately needs to stay out of jail. WHERE are the Dems? On vacation. Where is the so called Democratic Leadership? Missing in action. Really and truly, the only path to victory for whoever the Democratic candidate will be, is for trump to be IMPEACHED. Not an inquiry, the actual hearings to expose his criminal behavior and cooperation with Russia to undermine our democratic structures and the 2020 election.
TOO BAD but hardly the worst news as even you all did not see the announcement this spring that RIS Agent Bernie and his own SpecialAgent #GovHowardDean stated he had bought new software (fromRussia with love) to track every Democratic Voter at every level.. City County State and National .. and no one, but me? Even peeped.
Do you have a link? I would like to see that.
Welcome to America, the world’s pre-eminent ‘democracy’ in the 21st Century, after thirty years of Koch money spent.