Election watchdog regains policing powers with new member
The Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee to the Federal Election Commission, restoring policing powers to the nation's top campaign finance agency as the general election heats up.
Posted — UpdatedJames "Trey" Trainor's confirmation adds a fourth member to the commission, allowing the agency to resume its operations for the first time since late August, when it lost its quorum. The panel, designed to operate with six members, cannot take enforcement actions, hold hearings or offer formal advice to candidates and others active in elections without at least four members.
Trainor, a Texas Republican, had worked on Trump's 2016 campaign.
The Senate's party-line vote to confirm Trainor is unlikely, however, to change underlying divisions at the agency that have resulted in partisan gridlock in recent years and few enforcement actions. With Trainor's addition, the FEC will have two Republican members on one side and a Democrat and independent who tend to vote along similar lines on the other.
Democrats and campaign watchdogs had opposed Trainor's nomination, citing his past opposition to full disclosure of political donors and his work to redraw political maps in Texas. Democrats, led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, criticized Republicans who control the Senate for breaking with tradition and not advancing a Democratic nominee at the same time as a Republican.
"We'll go from a non-operating FEC to a dysfunctional FEC," said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, one of the groups that had lobbied against Trainor's confirmation.
With the commission sidelined, advocacy groups had increasingly turned to the courts, filing lawsuits that sought to have federal judges weigh in on potential violations of campaign finance rules.
Bradley Smith, a former FEC chairman who favors less campaign finance regulation, called Trainor "well-qualified" and said his confirmation restores the agency's partisan balance.
"The FEC can now, hopefully, defend its actions in court and provide guidance to speakers on how to comply with the law," said Smith, who serves as chairman of the nonprofit Institute for Free Speech, in a statement. "That is critical at any time, but it is even more important in an election year."
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