May 19, 2004 -- Statement of Trevor Potter on Decision by the FEC to Delay its Rulemaking on 527 Political Committees

Statement of Trevor Potter on today's decision by the FEC to delay its rulemaking on 527 political committees. Mr. Potter is a former member and chairman of the Federal Election Commission, and is president and general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center.

I believe we're going to look back on this as a fateful day at the Commission. It's hard to imagine more damning evidence that the agency is hopelessly politicized and flatly incapable of doing its job. We need to start over.

Because of the FEC's action today, we'll see more soft money spent in another presidential election. By the time 90 days has passed, as a practical matter it is going to be too late to do anything about the 527 problem in this cycle. And the history of soft money proves that it is always difficult to remove it from the system after it's been allowed to gain a foothold.

In the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974, Congress gave the Commission marching orders to regulate political spending "for the purpose of influencing a federal election." The Supreme Court in Buckley and again in McConnell gave the agency a clear roadmap for enforcing that provision. The FEC has once again chosen not to follow them.

The decision to ignore Congress and the Supreme Court is just part of a continuing pattern of abdication by the Commission. In 1988, the Dukakis campaign pioneered soft money, and the FEC did nothing, so the Bush campaign followed suit. In 1996, the DNC raised the soft money game to an art form, and the agency did nothing, so the RNC followed suit. The FEC's decision today just increases the risk that Republicans will follow the Democrats' example and raise and spend soft money in this cycle. And a new soft money scheme will have been born.

The irony here is that the Democrats strategy has been incredibly short sighted. If history repeats itself, the Republicans will get into the 527 business, and they've demonstrated their ability to outraise the Democrats in soft money.

We need to start the process of creating a new agency that will objectively enforce the law. The structure and politics at the current Commission obviously make that impossible now.