from Ballot Access News
Senate Bill for Revised FEC Would Require One Non-Major Party Commissioner
August 11th, 2009
On August 7, U.S. Senators Russell Feingold and John McCain introduced S.1648. It would replace the Federal Election Commission with a Federal Election Administration. The new body would have three members. All three would need to have different party affiliations than any of the others. Section 352(a) of the bill says, “(a) In General — the Administration shall be composed of 3 members, 1 of whom shall serve as the Chair. No member of the Administration shall — (1) be affiliated with the same political party as any other member of the Administration; or (2) have been affiliated with the same political party as any other member of the Administration at any time during the 5-year period ending on the date on which such individual is nominated to be a member of the Administration.”
One difficulty is that 21 states have no such concept as registration by political party, so whether someone is “affiliated” with any particular party is ambiguous.
The bill has no other co-sponsors so far, and no companion in the U.S. House.
It will be easily avoided by simply recruiting someone from a state with no registration and calling them an “independent”. There will be no proof to the contrary.
d.eris, agreed. It looks like some sort of elemental bipartisan balancing act was negotiated here. 3 members. 1 chair. 1 member must be third party/independent. They may not have realized the significance. Also looks like a lead baloon. We’ll see.
So we find someone who was registered independent for the past decade and has never been an elected public official. I suspect that out there someplace is a top-two primary advocate who qualifies.
Whatever the bill’s faults, the very idea of a three person board that would require a viewpoint from someone who is neither a Republican nor a Democrats is a major step forward from the usual notion that bi-partisan means non-partisan.
Initially I was elated at reading this. But then reality set in. McCain-Feingold got ignored by Obama last year. What’s to say this even passes? & which party is to be the third -generic third party/independent-representative? This whole bill or parts might be unconstitutional too.
Sometimes when we get a chain of hat tips, I feel like the Chinese Emperors who put their stamps on pictures they admired…
Anyway, for the above story, thank you to Richard Winger of Ballot Access News…Who, himself gave, “Thanks to Damon Eris of Poli-Tea for this news, and also to ElectionLawBlog.”