Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

How the federal election commission is structured
[...]
Well, the FEC has more than 300 employees, with six commissioners at the top.
The FEC's vice chair, James Trainor, is a Republican.
Weintraub has served as a commissioner on the FEC since 2002, according to the FEC website.
It says she has "served as a consistent voice for meaningful campaign-finance law enforcement and robust disclosure".
FEC commissioners are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
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 website says
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Fixing elections is atop many Republican's 'to do' boards

Departure on FEC hobbles the election enforcement agency

The agency responsible for enforcing federal election law has also lost its ability to proactively make policies.

By Jessica Piper
04/30/2025 12:15 PM EDT

The Federal Election Commision, the agency responsible for enforcing campaign finance laws, is again without enough members to take official action after a Republican commissioner announced his departure on Wednesday.

The agency is paralyzed without a quorum and cannot vote on things like the outcomes of investigations, citing committees for campaign finance violations, and issuing advisory opinions or guidance for campaigns.

Allen Dickerson, who was confirmed to the FEC in 2020, is the second commissioner to willingly depart the agency this year, following Republican Sean Cooksey’s resignation in January. President Donald Trump also sought to fire Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, in February. She publicly contended that the firing was illegal but has not participated in recent commission votes and is no longer listed on the agency’s website. The FEC has six commissioner spots, and four is required for a quorum, but Dickerson’s departure leaves the agency with just three commissioners.

Dickerson and the three remaining commissioners — Trey Trainor, Dara Lindenbaum and Shana Broussard — voted on several matters in Wednesday’s agency meeting before Dickerson announced his resignation.

“It’s difficult to remember the commission we inherited in 2020. Years of entrenchment and recrimination had badly hobbled this organization,” Dickerson told colleagues on Wednesday, adding he was proud of his work on the commission in at-times emotional remarks.

The FEC has lost quorum before — first in 2008, and then again twice during Trump’s first presidency. The lack of commissioners during Trump’s first presidency contributed to a significant backlog in cases before the commission, which commissioners worked through after returning to a quorum.

FEC commissioners are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Trump has not announced any new commissioner appointments in his term so far. By law, neither party can have more than three commissioners. Trainor is a Republican, and Lindenbaum and Broussard are Democrats.

Outside watchdogs warned in advance of Wednesday’s meeting that losing quorum would damage enforcement of campaign finance laws.

“Without a quorum, the FEC is a watchdog without a bark or bite,” said Michael Beckel, senior research director at Issue One, a nonprofit focused on money in politics. “Losing its quorum defangs the FEC at a time when the robust scrutiny of money in politics is needed more than ever.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/30/fec-quorum-00318077

Also, never forget Cleta Mitchell

What’s really behind Republican obstructionism?
"From Gingrich to McCarthy, the Roots of Governance by Chaos
Mr. Gingrich began the zero-sum politics that mutated into the brand of the Tea Party and
TrumpM.A.G.A. Republicans and that presaged the raucous speaker battle in the House."
[...]
[INSERT: It really is unbelievably dishonest, debilitating and disgusting. In my lifetime?
Never imagined such could happen.
And to think he, with Cleta's people et al, really could have illegally stolen the 2024 election ..
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Democrats grow concerned Republicans are planting seeds with legal suits to overturn a Trump defeat

"In a nutshell, excerpt -- "This is nothing short of an attack on the very foundation of this country. One of the reasons we even fucking exist is to have a country where everyone is subject to laws and no one person, a king or queen, can merely act without regard to those laws. I mean, the majority on the Supreme Court essentially just did George III's job for him, like this is a last battle of the Revolutionary War. (I mean, the fuckers on the right are literally talking about a second American revolution.)
[...][Insert: Cleta the cheata, N Carolina - As 2024 Voting Battles Heat Up, North Carolina G.O.P. Presses Forward
[...]
Some of them have rewritten statutes to seize partisan control of decisions about which ballots to count and which to discard, which results to certify and which to reject. They are driving out or stripping power from election officials who refused to go along with the plot last November, aiming to replace them with exponents of the Big Lie. They are fine-tuning a legal argument that purports to allow state legislators to override the choice of the voters."

Democrats say the lawsuits, which are varied, are part of a concerted effort to sow distrust of the results.
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