Campaign Groups Want FEC Chief Out (Swift Boat Supporters)

[Khephra]

WASHINGTON -- Leaders of three campaign finance groups urged the Federal Election Commission on Monday to disqualify the agency's chairman, Bradley Smith, from helping to decide whether a veterans group critical of Democratic nominee John Kerry's war record should have registered as a political committee.

The campaign groups said in a legal filing that Smith had made inappropriate remarks in recent weeks defending the anti-Kerry campaign activities of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, indicating Smith already had made up his mind on the subject.

"A basic requirement for all federal regulatory officials is that they not prejudge the facts of cases before them," said Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman and president of the Campaign Legal Center. The other groups complaining about Smith's comments included Democracy 21 and the Center for Responsive Politics.

Smith, in an interview Monday with The Associated Press, said he hasn't already decided on the subject. But he said he would speak to his agency's ethics lawyer for advice and might step aside.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-swift-veterans-fec,0,3081794.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[Hawkeye-X]

1. More appropros for SBVFB.

[Supersedeas]

2. are Trial Lawyers responsible for drafting that 'legal filing' -- bad baad

[starroute]

3. Googling Bradley A. Smith -- wow!

Try to overlook the fact that this article is written from a particularly snotty right-wing perspective and get the gist of what is being said:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_3_33/ai_76447017

The campaign finance reform establishment went absolutely insane in the spring of 2000. That's when Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.) worked a deal to persuade President Bill Clinton to nominate Bradley A. Smith, a professor of law at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, to the Federal Election Commission. (In exchange for the Smith nomination, the senators guaranteed a vote on 16 Clinton appointees to the federal bench.)

Vice president and presidential candidate Al Gore-remember him?-took time out from scaring senior citizens about losing Medicare to promptly declare Smith "unfit for office," even though his own administration had nominated the guy. The Senate's dynamic duo on campaign finance issues, Sens. John McCain (RAriz.) and Russell Feingold (DWis.), similarly declared its staunch opposition. "Sending Brad Smith to the FEC is akin to confirming a conscientious objector to be secretary of defense," huffed Vietnam vet McCain during a marathon, 10-hour debate over Smith's confirmation.

<snip>

Newspaper editorialists were conflicted over whether the Harvard-educated and widely published prof was technically fit for the post. "Smith is clearly qualified," opined The Washington Post. "His background in no way qualifies him for a spot on the commission he would just as soon abolish," wrote The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. But virtually all agreed that he was the wrong person for the job. The Post explained the reasoning well: "He simply does not believe in federal election law."

[BootinUp]

4. This is one of those stories

Where the more you learn the more say WTF!??!?!?

[starroute]

5. Link to Harry MacDougald and the whole Memogate complex

It just hit me:

Bradley Smith is a staunch opponent of campaign finance reform

Mitch McConnell was one of the two senators who persuaded Bill Clinton to appoint Smith as head of the FEC

Mitch McConnell was involved in a challenge to the campaign finance reform law a couple of years ago. Ken Starr was on his legal team. So were several lawyers supplied by the Southeastern Legal Foundation, including Harry W. MacDougald AKA "Buckhead" -- the blogger who started off the claims that the CBS memoes were forged.

That challenge was brought by the Center for Individual Freedom, which recently filed a complaint with the FEC claiming that CBS and the Kerry campaign were in collusion on the memos.

Yep, folks, it's your tax dollars at work promoting the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy yet again.