THE DAILY FED
FEC Chief Bemoans Caseload
At this week's National Journal Roundtable, Federal Election Commission chief Scott Thomas talked about the difficulty the agency has in handling its caseload of 1,700 complaints.
"As it stands right now, we are able to activate only about 30 percent of our cases that come before us," said Thomas. "That means we have to basically dismiss, with no action whatsoever, about 70 percent. We're worried that at some point the level of compliance will just drop off completely because people will, in essence, sense that the FEC can't get to us. ... This last election cycle I sense that there was kind of a daring that snuck into some of the campaign operations, that perhaps is caused somewhat by the FEC's inability to get to all of the cases."
Thomas noted that with only four of the five seats on the commission filled right now, it is difficult to put together the four votes necessary for the FEC to take action. "It has made it more difficult on some of our more ticklish cases," he said.
"I think, to be honest, in terms of appointments and the attention necessary to get that process going, the FEC situation has ranked fairly low on the totem pole," Thomas said. "There have been lots of other appointment matters that the White House has had to deal with, and for the most part this agency's situation has kind of fallen through the cracks for quite a while."
Roundtable is a weekly briefing with newsmakers hosted by the staffs of National Journal and its other publications, including Hotline, CongressDaily, Government Executive, American Health Line, Greenwire, Abortion Report, and Cloakroom.
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