For all its signature dysfunction, the Federal Election Commission has a staff of professionals working to track big money and shady behavior in the nation’s congressional and presidential campaigns. A dramatic — and until now overlooked — example of good staff work surfaced this month in a finding that Crossroads GPS, the shadowy, money-raising monolith of Karl Rove and other Republican strategists, probably broke the election law in 2010 when it claimed that much of its blatantly partisan campaign activities were “social welfare” initiatives.
The staff report properly recommended an in-depth investigation of the Rove operation, suggesting it should be registered as a political committee that would have to disclose its donors, instead of concealing them under the guise of social beneficence. The investigation never happened. The six commissioners split 3 to 3, along party lines, a familiar standoff engineered in recent years by Republicans to stifle the F.E.C.’s role as the enforcer of fair election campaigning.
Full Article: Dangerous Inaction by the Election Commission – NYTimes.com.