Issue One statement ahead of next week’s FEC confirmation hearings

Issue One today issued the following statement in response to the Senate Rules Committee announcing plans to hold confirmation hearings next Wednesday, Nov. 18, for attorneys Allen Dickerson, Sean Cooksey, and Shana Broussard to serve on the Federal Election Commission — which has only had the quorum necessary to conduct official business for 29 days this year and which has lacked a quorum since July 4th:

“If there was ever a time to have a functional Federal Election Commission, that time is now. The nation just experienced the most expensive election in history, with both liberal and conservative dark money groups injecting massive amounts of secret spending into our campaigns. For the FEC to be the effective watchdog the American people deserve, the agency needs to not only have a quorum but a quorum of commissioners who are dedicated to upholding our nation’s campaign finance laws,” said Issue One Executive Director Meredith McGehee.

She continued: “Now is not a time for pro forma confirmation hearings. Every person nominated for Senate-confirmed positions deserves rigorous scrutiny. Putting an allegiance to ideology over an allegiance to faithfully enforcing our nation’s anti-corruption laws will further jeopardize an already dysfunctional agency. When the FEC is broken, the American people lose, and senators should not forget that during next week’s confirmation hearings.”

Background:

The Federal Election Commission, our nation’s election watchdog, has been effectively shut down since July 4, 2020, because it does not have enough commissioners to do its job. This is just the third time that the FEC has lost a quorum in its 45-year history — but the second time this year. The FEC had previously been without a quorum for more than nine months, beginning in September 2019.