Partisanship of Federal Election Commission chairman must be investigated, says Davis

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL), ranking member of the U.S. House Administration Committee, recently called for an investigation of the chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for alleged partisan behavior.

“I believe that this pattern of behavior is unbecoming of the Federal Election Commission chair and may have possibly broken ethics regulations,” Rep. Davis said last week. “Impartial, nonpartisan leadership by the chair of the FEC is essential for the commission to fairly enforce our nation’s campaign finance laws.”

Specifically, Rep. Davis requested in an Oct. 10 letter sent to Inspector General Christopher Skinner that his office investigate potential violations of federal ethics regulations by FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub.

Such potential violations include Weintraub’s alleged “use of official government time and resources for ideological, political purposes; her continued appearances in national media to discuss matters outside the purview of the FEC; and her refusal to recuse herself from any Matters Under Review involving President Trump, despite the apparent conflict of interest between the Chair’s nonpartisan position at the FEC and the use of her official Twitter account to publicly disparage the president,” Rep. Davis wrote in his letter.

The congressman also said that he disagrees with the Democrats’ proposal in the For the People Act of 2019, H.R. 1, to reduce the FEC membership “to a more partisan structure of five members, especially considering the partisanship already displayed by its chair.”

“When we are talking about an agency whose primary mission is regulating speech within our country, it should only make decisions in a nonpartisan fashion,” Rep. Davis wrote.

The lawmaker also noted that if the Democrats think that the FEC’s current makeup is dysfunctional, then it’s time to “investigate the effect commissioners overstaying their term has on the agency.”

“Instead of waiting on the Senate Democrats to nominate commissioners to fill the current vacancies,” he wrote, “perhaps we should discuss the possibility of six new commissioners and determine what the value of new members may add to the agency.”