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Sudden FEC resignation means there will likely be NO enforcement of dark & foreign money laws in 202
Occupy Democrats
Full Headline: Sudden FEC resignation means there will likely be NO enforcement of dark & foreign money laws in 2020 election
JULY 3, 2020
The faster the 2020 election approaches, the faster Donald Trump’s re-election hopes seem to sink — but a disturbing new development could open the floodgates of dark money even wider and allow all sorts of foreign actors and scheming billionaires to interfere with our ailing democracy.
The comically ineffective and overwhelmed watchdog body created to enforce our laughable campaign finance laws, the Federal Elections Commission, is now entirely unable to perform its duties. Republican commissioner Caroline Hunter has resigned her post to go work for the Koch Brothers’ “philanthropic” dark money network Stand Together, leaving the commission with just three members — one short of the quorum of four needed to pass any rules, levy any fines, or launch any investigations.
Deliberately designed to be as useless as possible, the FEC is perpetually hamstrung by the decision to make commissioner appointments partisan and the membership number even. Unsurprisingly, the Republican-controlled FEC board has not felt the need to launch any investigations since Donald Trump took office. In fact, since the board’s creation in 2010, the FEC has not penalized any illegal coordination between campaigns and outside political groups.
To make matters worse, there is almost no chance the position is filled before the election. The FEC hasn’t even been able to meet for the past ten months, thanks to the August 2019 resignation of Vice Chairman Matthew Petersen. Trump’s latest commissioner, Trey Trainor, was nominated in September 2017, but the Senate didn’t even hold a hearing until nearly three years later; he was sworn in on June 5th, 2020; less than a month later, the quorum was lost once again.
The comically ineffective and overwhelmed watchdog body created to enforce our laughable campaign finance laws, the Federal Elections Commission, is now entirely unable to perform its duties. Republican commissioner Caroline Hunter has resigned her post to go work for the Koch Brothers’ “philanthropic” dark money network Stand Together, leaving the commission with just three members — one short of the quorum of four needed to pass any rules, levy any fines, or launch any investigations.
Deliberately designed to be as useless as possible, the FEC is perpetually hamstrung by the decision to make commissioner appointments partisan and the membership number even. Unsurprisingly, the Republican-controlled FEC board has not felt the need to launch any investigations since Donald Trump took office. In fact, since the board’s creation in 2010, the FEC has not penalized any illegal coordination between campaigns and outside political groups.
To make matters worse, there is almost no chance the position is filled before the election. The FEC hasn’t even been able to meet for the past ten months, thanks to the August 2019 resignation of Vice Chairman Matthew Petersen. Trump’s latest commissioner, Trey Trainor, was nominated in September 2017, but the Senate didn’t even hold a hearing until nearly three years later; he was sworn in on June 5th, 2020; less than a month later, the quorum was lost once again.
Read more here: https://occupydemocrats.com/2020/07/03/sudden-fec-resignation-means-there-will-likely-be-no-enforcement-of-dark-foreign-money-laws-in-2020-election/
