Apr 3, 2008 -- Financial Times: Congressional fight turns FEC into toothless tiger
By: Stephanie Kirchgaessner

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, declared last year that she was "draining the swamp in Washington" after passing a landmark ethics reform bill that was designed to curb the influence of lobbyists and transform the US capital's culture of corruption.

But a congressional fight over the federal agency that polices campaign spending has taken the bite out of one of the most drastic measures adopted last year, turning the Federal Election Commission into a toothless regulator in the midst of the most expensive presidential election in US history.

The six-member bipartisan agency has lacked a quorum since December, when the terms of three of its commissioners expired. With only two commissioners, the agency lacks enough votes to initiate investigations into candidates who may be violating campaign finance rules, issue advisory opinions to candidates who are seeking clarity on campaign laws, or rein in the aggressive advocacy groups that emerge every election cycle. It has left unanswered, too, a legal question over whether the Republican presidential candidate John McCain had the right voluntarily to pull out of the public financing system during the primary.

Under a doomsday scenario, the stalemate could be the death knell for the sputtering public finance system. If both candidates agree to accept public financing for the general election - which every presidential candidate has agreed to do since Watergate - the funding could be released only by a quorum at the FEC.

Some experts contend that the most serious drawback to the standstill has been the failure by the FEC to write regulations to enact a key element in last year's ethics reform bill. Under the new law, candidates for the White House and Congress were for the first time to be forced to name their most influential campaign fundraisers, those lobbyists (also known as "bundlers") who collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for a candidate.

If the FEC were fully staffed, the regulations would probably have been finalised by March, and the three contenders for the White House, Mr McCain and the Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, would have been forced to disclose by this summer the names of lobbyists who bundle donations for their campaign and how much each has raised. (The candidates would not have to disclose the names of bundlers who are not lobbyists.) Now, with too few commissioners to approve the regulations, the disclosure has been indefinitely delayed.

"The harm here is that the public doesn't have information about what is going on behind the curtain. Without this [regulation], you are still having a fairly common and increasingly important activity remaining in the shadows." says Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center.

Professor James Thurber at American University says that without disclosure, the public is unable to see potential inconsistencies in the arguments of some candidates, such as Mr McCain and Mr Obama, who have sworn to change the way business is conducted in Washington but are "probably" beneficiaries of bundling.

The three presidential candidates have voluntarily disclosed some information about bundlers. A list compiled by Public Citizen found that 14 former federal lobbyists have served as bundlers for Mr Obama's campaign, 22 former and current lobbyists have gathered donations for Mrs Clinton, and 66 lobbyists have bundled cash on behalf of Mr McCain. But the amount each has raised, and from whom, remain a mystery.

Most critics of the stalemate blame the Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell for the FEC debacle.

Mr McConnell has blocked attempts by Senate Democrats to hold separate votes on four nominees set to fill FEC vacancies because Democrats have vowed to reject one of the Republican nominees, Hans von Spakovsky. Mr von Spakovsky's appointment has been held up because of his record as an attorney in the civil rights division of the Justice Department, where Democrats allege he pursued policies that hurt minority voting rights.

Still other experts cast blame beyond the Republicans, suggesting it is not surprising that, with three sitting senators vying for the White House, neither party is rushing to find an end to the impasse.

Partisan bickering lands nominations in limbo

Roughly 180 judicial and agency-level nominations have been left in limbo in the waning months of the Bush administration because of partisan bickering in the Democratic-controlled Congress.

President George W. Bush recently named two Democrats to fill vacancies at the Securities and Exchange Commission and elevated a Republican commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission to the chairman role. The White House has been unable, however, to get Democrats to confirm its picks for top jobs at the Federal Aviation Administration, Internal Revenue Service, the justice department, and 17 ambassadorships.

"The three-member Council of Economic Advisers is down to one person," Mr Bush noted recently, "which makes for lonely council meetings."

Mr Bush blames Senate Democrats, who are hoping a Democrat will take the White House in November. Senator Harry Reid, majority leader, has turned the finger of blame back at Mr Bush for his "all or nothing" approach, insisting the president should put more acceptable nominees forward.