Campaign Watchdog FEC Left Toothless After Vice Chairman’s Resignation

(Bloomberg) -- The vice chairman of the Federal Election Commission resigned Monday, leaving the commission unable to carry out some of its duties as the enforcer of campaign finance laws on the eve of a presidential election year.

Matthew Petersen’s departure Aug. 31 will leave the bipartisan commission with just three of its six members. The panel must have a quorum of four commissioners to hold meetings and conduct business.

That means the commission can’t levy fines, make rules or even initiate new audits or investigations.

But the panel’s other Republican member, Caroline Hunter, said it would be “business as usual” in other ways. Audits and litigation already underway can continue, and the agency will still accept and publish campaign finance reports from candidates and committees, she said.

The 2020 race is expected to break all records for political spending. The last time the FEC was without a quorum was 2008, leaving key legal questions in limbo for six months.

Petersen was first nominated to a six-year term in 2008 by President George W. Bush. That appointment expired in 2014, but partisan politics has created gridlock for successive nominations, so Petersen and others have continued as holdovers under a provision allowing them to serve until a successor is confirmed.

In 2017, President Donald Trump nominated James E. “Trey” Trainor, an Austin, Texas lawyer. That nomination expired when the Senate failed to take action, and Trump re-nominated him in January.

The Washington Examiner, which first broke the news of his resignation, reported that Petersen did not hint at the reason for his resignation beyond saying, “It’s just the right time.”

In his resignation letter, Petersen said he was was proud of his opposition to “unnecessarily rigid” campaign finance regulations in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which struck down rules on political spending by corporations and labor unions.

Petersen received notoriety in 2017 after Trump nominated him to a federal court seat in the District of Columbia. Trump withdrew the nomination after Petersen’s confirmation hearing went viral because he couldn’t answer basic questions about criminal procedure.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Korte in Washington at gkorte@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley

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