Donald Trump panned “pay-to-play” politics, blasted “rigged” elections and vowed to “drain the swamp” that is Washington, D.C. But Trump has so far forsaken the very government agency Congress created after Watergate to work as the nation’s campaign season Roto-Rooter. The Federal Election Commission’s six commissioners, including the agency’s three Republicans, say neither Trump nor his transition team has contacted them. Trump, meanwhile, appointed Don McGahn, a former FEC chairman and preeminent enemy of campaign finance regulations, as his top White House lawyer. Representatives for the Trump transition declined to answer questions from the Center for Public Integrity about the FEC. The developments together are evidence that the FEC — once a reasonably robust and bipartisan judge of political misdeeds — heads into 2017 even more marginalized than ever before by the very politicians it’s supposed to advise and police.
… The FEC’s newly minted chairman, longtime commissioner Steven Walther, will attempt to orchestrate his agency’s discord into something modestly more symphonic, at least on a couple of imminent matters: overseeing the agency’s move to a new headquarters and completing an overhaul of its outmoded website. He defended the agency’s relevance, particularly as a campaign finance data clearinghouse. “People who complain about the FEC would complain a lot more if it wasn’t there,” said Walther, a Democratic appointee who identifies as an independent and also served as agency chairman in 2009. “Sure, people here have strong views and don’t always agree. I wouldn’t expect anything else, and we’ll do what we can to work together.”
Outgoing FEC Chairman Matthew Petersen last year vowed to dial down intra-commission acrimony, which at its worst prompted bizarre, public debates about men’s nipples and space aliens. He concurred that 2016 is proof “we can disagree without being disagreeable” and “operate in a collegial manner.”
But Walther acknowledged he’s all but powerless to break deadlocks on the agency’s thorniest issues, such as defining political “dark money” or determining what constitutes illegal political activity.
Full Article: Beleaguered Federal Election Commission enters 2017 as marginalized as ever | Public Radio International.