Also next week. And our problems churches have their normal service instead at 2 pm Oct 20th we're meeting at daycare center to minister to the residents there sounds really cool and of course Pastor Bill Johnson is organizing the 2nd series in their health seminar for October 29th. At St James Missionary Baptist Church 1st team mental wellness the Trail of Tears. And loss announcement still looking for. 34 more people to partner in their. Purchase of the field of dreams to house mission missionaries. So you can check out more information about that mission I love. All right with that I will leave you for this week here comes. I. Enjoy this. 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Welcome to here and there we searched near and far to bring you accelerate timely information about important new stories here in New Mexico in the American Southwest and they're everywhere else I'm Dave Marash the state of Georgia pretty much set the standard for voters suppression in 2018 when the state supervisor of elections secretary of state Brian Kemp closed hundreds of polling places a very disproportionate number of them located where the majority of voters were African-Americans the Georgia secretary of state's decision was just peachy for the state's Republican candidate for governor yes the selfsame Brian Kemp who want to office by narrowly defeating the Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams an African-American with overwhelming support among other African-American voters. Where is General Sherman when you're really need him as America approaches the 2020 election cycle Georgia seems set again on topping the heap when it comes to wasting taxpayers' money on frighteningly vulnerable voting machines. George's new ballot machinery will be based on an operating system so old it will in its maker's words reach its end of life on January 14th 2020 about 10 months before Election Day what that description of Windows 7 means is that Microsoft will no longer provide regular technical support and patches to fix software vulnerabilities of the very kind that hackers can exploited challenge to about this abandonment of ballot security Microsoft amended its position promising that Windows 7 security updates through 2023 will be available but only 2 states that pay additional fees. The Windows 7 voting systems including the brand new one that Georgians are buying come from a company called Election Systems and Software e.d.s. S. They are America's number one seller of voting systems experts say there is a newer operating system Windows 10 which would provide much better voting security but he has asked says it's already too late to put Windows 10 into its Ga products even though Windows 10 has been on the market since 2015. In the neighboring state of Tennessee lawyers representing voters in Shelby County that's Nashville by and large have sued to force the county in the state to force c.s.s. To upgrade its crappy Well they call it obsolete 11 system the suit also question the security of memory cards computers and modems used by the county because all of them are considered very vulnerable to online manipulation the plaintiffs suggested the chubby County adopt an optical scan system that uses hand marked paper ballots the kind that no hacker can defile Unfortunately for them their case was tried before u.s. District Court Judge Thomas they call him Tommy Parker who had nothing in his decision to say about the value of paper ballots or the inadequacies of the Windows 7 based system that will create the ballots program the voting machines tally the votes and report the counts in Shelby County no Judge Parker was focused on 2 other questions what standing do mirror voters have to challenge how public officials are mishandling elections and what harm is done to voters if things go wrong. No was Judge Parker's answer to both questions in his legal opinion voters have no standing to make such a case and will suffer no damages from a hacked election you'll be shocked I'm sure to learn that Judge Parker was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump It is true that it is both a constitutional principle and historic tradition that elections in the United States are handled by the states and they are counties except of course for that 2000 presidential election when a Republican dominated Supreme Court stopped a recount by the vote of Florida to award the presidency to George w. Bush but the federal government does have a branch that is devoted to helping states with the election process it is the Federal Election Commission Unfortunately at this moment the f.e.c. Has gone as one veteran electoral watchdog said quote from dysfunctional to nonfunctional and in other words from doing their job badly to not doing it at all our guest today Dave Levinthal has been closely covering the Federal Election Commission the f.e.c. As part of his role as lead reporter on federal politics for the Center for Public Integrity Dave welcome back to here in there and can we start with what the f.e.c. Was designed to do at the bit with you David on the f.e.c. It was started really in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal in the early 1970 s. And of course into the mid 1970 s. The notion of campaigns being taken over by forces that were not there for the public good but there for their own good was causing the country to of course in retrospect find itself in a potential disaster. Certainly a combustible situation the f.c.c. Was set up by Congress to be a licks or 2 that set up to be an agency that was going to be bipartisan in nature called balls and strikes and on the issue of campaign money in particular it was going to be there to serve number one as a clearing house so that information about all the money that goes in so the elections year after year and all the money that comes out of elections at the federal level would be accounted for but also to serve as a cop on the beat to be there to be a federal government agency that was there to regulate and enforce campaign finance laws all across the country and most lawmakers at the time really saw the issue of campaign money as being one that was left to its own devices tantamount to potential corruption certainly Watergate taught us that and as for result the f.e.c. Was set up to serve that purpose and as now just about 45 years old although I will put the Astros right next to that to say that the f.e.c. Of today looks a good bit different than it did 45 years ago Well one good reason for that is if you look at the dollar amounts of campaign money is that the f.e.c. Was monitoring back in the mid and late 1970 s. a Fear claimed by comparison with the staggering sums of money that are going to be invested in the 2020 election campaign I saw one the estimate that for social media alone the bill is going to be about 2 and a half 1000000000 bucks and it's entirely possible we could have numbers thrown around by the end of this affair that are going to reach those levels that this is absolutely going to be a multi-day mole time $1000000000.00 federal election and this is not even taking into account the state races group in a Tauriel races or what. Are going to happen in the interim and next year so when you have that much money going in ostensibly You need an agency or somebody to be able to get that information to the public if you believe that this information should be there available to the public and most everyone Republicans and Democrats still agree that elections should not be conducted in secret but it's a basic tenant of our democratic system as it is that people have the ability or should have the ability to know when candidates are racing money where they're getting their money from how much they are raising and how they're spending it too and also due to all the other outside organizations that exist at their political action committees party committees what they're doing as well and the Federal Election Commission is very much on the vanguard of that type of activity to make sure that that information is public and I also mentioned before that they do have an enforcement role and it's a major major role in the sense that if somebody is breaking the law if somebody is doing something that's in violation of the standards that have been set the f.e.c. Is there to investigate if wrongdoing has taken place or if suspected wrongdoing has is taking place and right now as you mentioned the Federal Election Commission not only is in a situation where the the representatives on the Federal Election Commission the commissioners on the Federal Election Commission oftentimes find themselves in disagreement and some would call that dysfunction but the f.e.c. As of September 1st David simply is not able to enforce the law why is that the case the case is because they don't have enough commissioners by law to conduct high level business to make an investigative decisions to even conduct open public meetings and certainly to be able to punish anyone if they've done something that the f.c.c. Has deemed to be illegal. We're now into the 3rd week of this particular situation it's a 1st time anything like this has happened in more than a decade and it's a situation that for anyone who really cares about the functioning of elections as one that is pretty bleak and really shows no end in sight stopping Well for those of you who may remember Roberts Rules Oh border what the commission has presently constituted lacks is what's known as a quorum they don't have enough people by their own bylaws and enabling legislation to do anything. It's actually a fairly long list of important things that until they have a quorum the f.c.c. The f.c.c. Cannot do can you sort of lay out for us the particulars of this political paralysis mention a couple of them but let's tick down the list number one the f.e.c. By virtue of not having a 4 member minimum quorum they cannot go forward if there are allegations of wrongdoing at elections and open an investigation and move forward on that just simply something they don't have the power to do if a political committee comes to the f.e.c. As political committees often do and say we want to follow the law but we need your advice and we need your opinion on how best to follow the law maybe they want to spend money in a certain way maybe they want to raise money in a certain way maybe they have a debt that they want to deal with it could be a variety of things they go to the f.e.c. And seek that kind of opinion while the f.e.c. Cannot provide that right now and when you get in says sort of the darker territory of elections if there's a complaint against a political committee or a political candidate perhaps somebody has done something that is the you had to be against the law that they're taking money from. Sources that they shouldn't that maybe they're taking money from foreign actors as has been a major issue over the past several years of course the f.c.c. Ostensibly would be the government agency to go and look into a matter such as this and ultimately punish somebody with a monetary fine a civil penalty if they were deemed to have been in violation of the law while the f.c.c. Can't do that either and the f.c.c. Finally at its most basic level they can't conduct public meetings where they make binding decisions saod the notion of people the public showing up and having an audience before the f.c.c. And being able to see them do the government's business all that just simply isn't going to be happening until we get ourselves back into a position where the 6 member f.e.c. Which is supposed to be a bipartisan body are no more than 3 commissioners are the members of any one party Well we only have 3 commissioners right now who are active and it's really incumbent on the president the United States and the u.s. Senate to respectively nominate and then appoint new commissioners to the f.e.c. But Donald Trump has not been able to fill the 3 now of vacant positions that exists in the Senate has not confirmed the one person who Donald Trump has floated who's actually been in limbo for a few years so it takes both the president and the Senate to tango and getting f.e.c. Commissioners appointed And meanwhile they're just not doing that and so until they do that particular job then we're going to be in the situation that we're talking about right now for weeks and potentially months David. Just to give one small example of the product of this paralysis you won't be surprised to learn that one of the most recent complaints that was brought before the f.e.c. Was aimed at one of President terms for the retard gets Congress. I'm in Illinois Omar of Minnesota did was charge that she may have misused campaign funds for personal use and ordinarily a functioning f.e.c. Would undertake to investigate and either clear or even potentially punish representative Omar for this but instead this complaint is going to drop to the bottom of a pile of more than $300.00 incomplete investigations on which no action can presently be taken and I think it's $45.00 of them according to Sue Halpern in The New Yorker that are nearing the statute of limitations so they may be closed as cases before they're investigated often at best justice is slow at the f.e.c. Even when they do have a quorum even when they do have enough commissioners to conduct that kind of high level business that we've just been discussing but when you don't have a quorum none of that business gets conducted and investigations that are already in motion can not come to full resolution and new investigations such as the one that you just mentioned with Congresswoman Ileana Mar they can't get started because although a complaint has been filed the f.e.c. Is not in a position to alternately say up or down as to whether they want to formally move forward with that so you can see the problem that gets created the backlog that is preexisting grows it doesn't go anywhere it doesn't move you have cases that are so old and so stale at this point that they could actually expire in terms of the f.e.c. Is ability to do anything about them and then these new cases are more or less put on ice until the f.e.c. Is able to regain its quorum and ultimately move forward on them once it's able to do so but when I mentioned that it could be weeks or mine. Yes it really could be months we could be having this same conversation or at least a similar conversation several months from now where nothing has happened and we have no new commissioners that have been appointed and these new complaints that have been put forward these old cases that haven't gone anywhere that's going to be the same case then as it is now and you know not only is the f.c.c. Tasked with doing investigations that it presently can't do because it has been a politically fractious body there have been charges of various kinds of misconduct by people within the agency normally this would be the purview of the agency's inspector general. For about half of this year there was no inspector general this is a watchdog for the watchdogs if you will and the inspector general who exists in most government agencies at the federal level plays that role to make sure that an agency is doing everything by the book that waste and fraud and abuse or things that don't creep into the agency's operations and at the f.e.c. There hit simply been no inspector general going back to early 2017 now for a while they had a deputy inspector general who was serving kind of in that defacto role he left the agency at the at the end of 2018 and quite literally they had nobody in a position to do the work of that particular agency which mind you in a very practical sense hid the conducted investigations even on the current chairwoman of the f.e.c. If she was cleared and nothing was ever found but if there ever complains that rise to that level if there's any concern that a prominent official in the f.c.c. Is not doing something correctly violating a rule violating a regulation or even a law it's the job of that inspector general to go ahead and take care of that and investigate it so without an inspector general the internal workings of the f.e.c. Are sort of left without a watchdog for the watchdog again and I can report now that there is a new f.e.c. Inspector general in that role the f.e.c. Finally appointed a person just a couple of months ago back in August to take care of that and but it really speaks to sort of the broader issue at the f.e.c. That there are and have been for the past several years gave it a number of high profile they can see he's going all the way up to the commissioner level now key spots in their legal office and elsewhere. Or and it's not a large agency by government standards just a little bit more than 300 people so if you lose a number of people in high level spots there are just that fewer people who can do the work of an agency that is covering all aspects of federal elections when it comes to the billions and billions of dollars that we know are going to go in and out of those elections can become very precarious and as you open with you and when you 1st started talking at the beginning of the segment there are a number of issues that face the country right now people by and large would like to see that some of those issues are taken care of and money factors into it in a major way when it comes to elections and campaigns you know the presently constituted f.e.c. Is one of those legendary tribes in which the Indian is outnumbered by the chiefs there is a chair Ellen Weintraub she is serving as chair of the commission for the 3rd time in her now 17 year career in the commission she's a Democrat Carolyn Hunter a Republican is the deputy chair and Stephen Walther The Independent is not a chair he's just a commissioner but he's been a chair and a pest and part of what accounts for this sort of revolving door chairs and Deputy chairs and just plain commissioners is that the the the statutory term for an f.c.c. Commissioner 6 years but as we say Ellen Weintraub is now in her 17th or 18th year and Carolyn Hunter and Steven Walther are in their 11th year simply because of what he's been appointed to replace them back about 2 decades ago Congress decided that there should be terms for federal. Election Commission commissioners they set those terms at 6 years and a commissioner was supposed to be able to serve 16 year term that was put in place in part to prevent some previous commissioners serving basically ad nauseum that there had been a commissioner who served 20 years and others who had served a long period of time as well so that rule went into plights so why then are we talking about commissioners who have been there more than 6 years the reason we're talking about that David is because the commissioners after their 6 year terms have been expired were never replaced by any of the 3 presidents and this really goes back to George w. Bush who failed to offer nominees for certain f.e.c. Commissioners whose terms had expired and then that went to Barack Obama and he to fail to put nominees up for commissioners whose terms had expired and then Donald Trump also to same thing and meanwhile we got ourselves into a situation flash forward to 2017 where commissioners started resigning and they weren't getting replaced at all which at least one commissioners had resigned in the past they had been replaced that happened in 2013 for example when 2 commissioners who no longer are there because they have since resigned they came onto the commission because others who'd fallen off the commission. So what happened while you have these commissioners who are have their terms expired and they continue serving in what's called holdover status and a holdover status is basically I'm going to stick around until a president nominates somebody to replace me and in the case of Ellen Weintraub the after mention chairwoman of the f.e.c. Right now she started at the f.e.c. Around 2002 and her term expired in 2007 and she's still here and 20196 years or 12 years after the fact and serving another stint as chairwoman simply because there's nobody else to be a Democrat and be a chair as a rotating chairperson ship I should note where Republican will have a one year and a Democrat will have another we have an independent on the commission the caucus is more or less with the Democrats though so he'll get that is well Stephen Walter but it's by a large just a situation that very few people would consider to be the ideal and it is incumbent on Donald Trump and really him alone to nominate new commissioners to fill those open seats we have 3 vacancies right now and Donald Trump has nominated one person to fill those 3 vacancies the other 2 are just not nominated yet needed for yet and while the Senate just hasn't moved on that one nominee who's been there for 2 years so it's kind of a doubly fraught situation and one night not to go on and on about the particulars but this is important that I there's a division right now between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and the White House too as to how to proceed the president could name 6 new nominees for the f.e.c. And clean the house have a whole new slate go go forward if you want to and Republicans in the Senate are urging him to do just that. That so he could put his stamp his imprint sure on the f.e.c. And this is a situation that almost never happens but Democrats just want the f.e.c. More or less to get functioning again get that quorum back and they want to move forward with the one nominee perhaps 2 they've offered up a. Suggestion of their own to Donald Trump so that they could at least have a couple of new f.c.c. Commissioners and even if they weren't at full strength they'd at least have enough to begin doing their work again and not be and this sort of never never land of the f.c.c. To which they are right now without a qualm Well this drip drip drip from 6 commissioners to $4.00 to $3.00 has been happening over years this is a slow motion train wreck and that single nominee trait trainer has a few links to stories of great interest which we'll get to in a few moments Well 1st we're going to take a brief pause this is here in there I'm Dave Marash Our guest is David Leventhal He's the lead reporter for federal politics for the Center for Public Integrity will be back right after these mass. Welcome back to here in there on Dave Marash Our guest is Dave Levinthal of the Center for Public Integrity Dave Trey trainer the man who Donald Trump has nominated to be a new commissioner he's been dangling for 2 years and why is that in spite of the fact that his chief credential seems to be the ability to hold 2 separate Trump penned signs in front of his face for a nearby photographer nobody seems to have anything against him personally the problem is that the tradition is to keep a non or bi partisan spirit on the Federal Election Commission commissioners are always. Nominated and appointed in shares a Democrat and a Republican or sometimes 4 newsmen thrown in an independent President Trump has resolutely for the past 2 years been insisting that his Republican nominee trade trainer be ratified as a commission there is resistance institutionally in the Senate to doing that until there is a match Democrat but you're saying move the Senate has now put forward a 2nd Democratic name to appear up with trainer we reported just last week that Senate Democrats have indeed gone forward and offered up to President Trump a Democratic nominee who he could nominate that may seem strange that Donald Trump would nominate a Democrat but that goes back to just the nature of the f.e.c. That it is a bipartisan independent commission so whoever the sitting president has whether it's proc Obama Donald Trump or somebody else that they it's incumbent on them to nominate and have a balance on the f.e.c. Of no more than 3 commissioners from any one party that's always been interpreted as 3 Democrats or 3 Republicans 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans or as the situation was with Stephen Walter 2 Democrats a Democratic leaning independents and 3 Republicans So Donald Trump right now hasn't acted on this new potential nominee if the Democrats in the Senate have offered up her name is Seanna Brossard she is actually a an executive assistant attorney to Commissioner Steve Walter right now she would be the 1st African-American nominee to the f.e.c. In the f.e.c. Is history if she was to get appointed the 1st commissioner and and just something that the president has chosen at this point not to go forward with I spoke with the White House last week they said that their 1st priority right now is to get trade trainer. The Republican commissioner nominee who Donald Trump offered up 2 years ago through the process and approved but as you mentioned the Senate has had this informal tradition where Democratic and Republican nominees would be considered in tandem in the spirit of a bipartisan body that the f.e.c. Is so it's sort of those 3 way loggerhead that you have going on here with Senate Democrats Senate Republicans and the White House as to exactly how to proceed here and until they all get this figured out we're going to be at the same lot that we're in right now with the f.e.c. Unable to do many of its core duties and be an agency that is you know technically open for business with a staff that So showing up for work and executing its transparency function and not being able to enforce a law in any other meaningful way now in 2017 a Democratic commissioner and Ruvo resign and opening up a seat on what was then. After her resignation a 5 person board that was when Matthew Peterson whose recent resignation bringing things below the quorum level down to 3 commissioners his resignation actually was set in train just about the same time that Commissioner Revelle resigned back in 2017 the plan was that President Trump would nominate Matthew Shepard to be a federal judge sort of like Tommy Parker of Tennessee that didn't work out though it most certainly did not and Matthew Peterson was. He was sent up to become a federal district judge here in Washington d.c. President Trump nominated him in September of 2017 and everything looked to be on track for Matthew Peterson to leave the f.e.c. And take a seat. The court in sometime in early of 2018 Well one problem he went for his confirmation hearing before the u.s. Senate Matthew Peterson did and he was unable to answer a series of what were fairly basic questions that one would expect a District Court nominee of that sort would be able to answer and it was a wildly embarrassing moment I've talked to the commissioner Peterson or former commissioner Peterson several times about it in the aftermath than he said you know I hope that I won't be judged on maybe the worst 510 minutes of my life for my entire career but the fact of the matter was it was too damaging for him to remain he ended up withdrawing his nomination and his consolation prize I suppose if you could call it that was to return to his seat on the Federal Election Commission which he did in state and for more than a year and a half but ultimately Matthew Peterson decided that he wanted to go into private practice he joined a law firm he resigned as effective us a temple 1st this year and he's gone he's left with his resignation came that last of a quorum that has put the f.e.c. Into the situation that it is right now and Donald Trump he could have at any time between the time Matthew Peterson came back to the f.e.c. And his judicial nominees that nomination failed and the time Matthew Peterson ultimately resigned from the f.e.c. And dealt with some of these vacancies existing and replacing other commissioners who have over served their term one kind of bizarre statistic here is that the 3 remaining f.c.c. Commissioners who are serving despite their terms having long ago expired his collectively served 29 years past the expiration of their terms. You know that's that's a long time there's a lot of people who you know haven't been alive 29 years who were working on Capitol Hill and whatnot and yet that's the total combined overstay that the 3 f.e.c. Commissioners right now have been Donald Trump again has that option to clean all of them out if he wanted to just break with tradition and set of naming commissioners to buy to name 6 all at once and he could even do something highly unconventional The president is definitely no slave to convention and he could name say 3 Republicans and 3 independents not name any Democrats at all he can name 3 Republicans and maybe 3 Pro Trump libertarians it's no indication that he's going to do anything of that sort it is interesting to kind of play the parlor game of what the president might do and the situation that he has really as unique as this one where you have 6 commissioners who could be replaced all at once theoretically at the president want to go that route you know in today's hyper partisan atmosphere it's doubly surprising to note that the senator who really embarrassed Matthew Shepard by pointing out his lack of preparation and lack of knowledge of quests ability to answer questions that were really Law School one o one 1st course kinds of questions was a conservative Republican John Kennedy of Louisiana and the other point that I want to make about Matthew Shepard's resignation you pointed out he made that the middle of August he was gone the 1st of September. Leaving only a 2 week gap between I want to get out of here and I'm gon is itself unusual and to me suggests that what Shepard the president may be about here is creating a single Republican vacancy Matthew Shepard that could be. Mutely be filled by a single Republican nominee trade trainer with without getting into difficulties of balancing as the tradition has been of the partisanship on the commission of the f.e.c. But that that short term resignation I'll be seeing you in the middle of August see a later 1st of September is in itself a kind of anomaly it isn't oftentimes the commissioners will give a little bit more notice Matthew Peterson left the commission with or at least announces pending resignation and it became public before even the chairperson of the f.e.c. Knew there was a bit of a misconnection that he stopped by her office Helen Weintraub office as at as it's been told to me and. The news came out before he had a chance to even speak with her but it was quite abrupt and but it should have been surprising he was somebody who obviously been. You know in a position where he was going to leave the commission and then didn't say oh yeah the clock was ticking on Matthew Peterson being there in the 1st place but one thing just to know too is that one kind of squirrelly aspect of this is that if tradition was to be held with then you had a Republican and a Democrat nominated at the same time right now that could give the Democrats a little bit of an advantage in the sea and the sense that there would be if everyone was confirmed 3 Democrats are Democratic leaning commissioners versus 2 Republican commissioners and although you need typically 4 votes to get anything done affirmatively you have to at the f.e.c. To find a committee or to make a vote there are some internal things that only take just a majority say oh the Republicans and the Democrats they typically know. You want the other side to have any advantage be a big or small so that's another little wrinkle in the situation to consider and Republicans and Democrats are considering as part of trying to get the f.e.c. Back on track or or not as the case may be well they throw out a couple of examples of the old dysfunctional f.e.c. In contrast to the present non functional f.e.c. But 1st we're going to take another brief pause this is here in there I'm Dave Marash Our guest is Dave Levinthal he is the lead federal politics reporter for the Center for Public Integrity will be back right after these innocent. Welcome back again to here in there I'm Dave Marash Our guest is Dave Levinthal of the Center for Public Integrity Dave there's nothing in the enabling legislation of the f.e.c. That says that. It should have after Citizens United decision have essentially dropped dead in terms of monitoring big money flows and the use of PACs and super PACs the rules for them and the supposed Lee bright line separating the PACs from the campaigns of candidates. Things were never terribly inefficient in terms of in forcing the rules on money in politics but after Citizens United basically nothing has happened in terms of monitoring the PACs or the super PACs true the criticism particularly that you hear from liberals and Democrats is that the f.e.c. Even when it did have a quorum and couldn't force the law was so philosophically divided Republicans versus Democrats that you could never really find any commonality or common ground among those commissioners to make rulings that would affect the way that money works in politics and you mentioned the Citizens United decision incredibly seminal did decision back by the Supreme Court in 2010 which really open the floodgates of money into politics and a new way a lot of corporations and labor unions and certain types of nonprofit organizations to use unlimited amounts of money to advocate for and against politicians something that was quite powerful and quite profound and then you have the issue of quote unquote dark money really began to gain prominence this decade and what Dark Money is money that you simply can't trace back to its root source but yet is being used for that purpose that I just described advocating directly for and against politicians and there are some types of nonprofit organizations such as business leagues for so called social welfare organizations that have together spent into the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of dark money and say for some great reporting out there that got the information through other means this is not information the source of this dark money so to speak that is just simply De Vry Grrr put into the. Bloodstream it's money that you just don't typically in a standard sort of way know the root source of the f.c.c. Has just almost been silent on these issues in many regards and that speaks to sort of the underlying issues that the f.c.c. Has had an even defining what its role is in tackling some of these big thorny issues that are now in play in politics right now it's important to note that later this month there's going to be the 1st congressional oversight hearing of the f.e.c. It was just announced and it hasn't something like this hasn't happened and 8 years in the you know months after the Sosa decision had taken place and I suspect that some of these very thorny questions about f.e.c. Operations internally and the more extensional existential ones about what is the role of the f.e.c. In the age of Citizen Jane I did in the age of secret money and politics in the age of potential foreign infiltration into u.s. Elections and the advertising or or direct money or anything of the sort expect we're going to hear a lot of that pay attention to this particular race if you care about the democratic process and elections I think where we're going to name some names here and we're going to hear a lot of congresspeople way and then some some rather picked tones about what they think should be the case and potentially new laws that they would like to see put on the books but there are essential to big worries about Dark Money One is its power the scale of dark money contributions and 2 are Merican politics has grown into the billions and this does have a powerful effect the other concern of course is their un traceability nobody can be held responsible for their contributions because. As the source of the conferee view Sion is dark is hidden in the 2016 election we moved into a new era in which direct money have an even more powerful indirect power through social media and again the same 2 concerns here the blatant use of fake news and propaganda via aimed at targeted subjects' on social media. Demonstrably has a powerful political effect and it is equally untraceable. The more Robert Muller was able to trace back influence to 13 Russian sources who were indicted for interfering in the 2016 elections but that's barely scratching the surface of what happened in 2016 and to a lesser degree in 2018 and Muller says is likely to happen on an even grander scale in 2020 and when it comes to the whole area of social media and its influence on how to monitor and control and regulate it this is something that the f.e.c. Really hasn't addressed yet and until the core issue is settled ain't going to be able to address at all maybe not in time for the 2020 lections and the f.c.c. Has more or less stood on the sidelines regarding the issues that you just brought up now there's kind of 2 schools of thought here Republicans on the f.e.c. When I talk to them said look the f.e.c. Is a regulatory agency we don't make laws we regulate the law we enforce the law but it's up to Congress to make laws that ultimately we can go and do our job and regulate investigate service a law enforcement agency so that the kind of theme that you get from Republicans in terms of what the f.e.c. Should and shouldn't be doing often falls along those lines also it's worth noting too that the Republicans who have served on the f.e.c. Recently take a very laissez faire attitude toward money and politics they believe that money very much is tantamount to one's ability to conduct and engage and free political speech but the government should err on the side of letting them speak as. To squelching their ability to do so and they don't want to stand in the way of anyone including Democrats or liberals from exercising that right the Democrats by and large have taken the opposite view or at least 8 starkly different view to say more along the lines of hate dark money and politics that that's just something that nobody intended including the Supreme Court in their 2010 Citizens United decision when they talked about the importance of transparency when they talked about the importance of knowing who is behind political spending and that that case will be made time and time again when you talk to Democrats though the f.c.c. Has not been able to come into any type of internal equilibrium on this issue there is really been no general resolution and that's why those types of issues like political advertising and Dark Money and the role of the Internet in communications via the Internet for political elections and what should be regulated what should be disclaimed these are issues that the f.c.c. Just in most cases hasn't been able to affirmatively go forward together and come to some sort of conclusion that the public and political actors can abide by well I have to say that the Republican position the functioning of the f.e.c. Tends to revolve between oh shut up and just go away or be quiet or die and one of the most powerful Republican advocates for reducing the powers and the influence on the activity and maybe even the existence of the f.c.c. Is a former commissioner and former chief counsel Donald Trump's White House Don McGann Absolutely and Tom again was a former f.e.c. Commissioner he served on the committee. From 2008 until 2013 and when he came on in 2008 he was somebody who very very strongly was advocating internally and externally for the f.e.c. Of being a weak regulatory agency and for political actors to have the ability to act politically using money and using as much money as they potentially wanted to and not having to worry about the government overstepping its bounds and his opinion and the opinion of many of his Republican colleagues so that in a way you would have a as free a marketplace of ideas with as much money floating around maybe as possible and that political arena and it was something where Donegan had a lot of success in moving the f.e.c. Toward that direction you can define a success certainly by by his measure but also to you started seeing many many many contentious cases before the f.e.c. Cases that might have not been so contentious before but we're now deadlocking where the commission wasn't able to hit that magic 4 votes that it needed to have an affirmative ruling as to what it ultimately was going to do or not to want to cases before it and that could be anything from the types of cases where committees political committees political candidates asked the f.e.c. For its opinion or investigations where the f.e.c. Is deciding whether to punish somebody for breaking the law and if you don't get those magic 4 votes then you get a decision that isn't going anywhere and even if you have a difference of opinion even if you have potentially a majority just doesn't fly that way at the f.e.c. Which is giving rise to some members of Congress saying clipping some Democrats that I've talked to of late who want to fundamentally reform the f.e.c. Want to change it want to take away those 6 member commission. Which can have those deadlocked votes and turn it into a 5 member commission where you wouldn't have those types of deadlocks thank the 9 votes that you have in the Supreme Court if you have an odd number of commissioners or justices or whoever they may be if you're not going to be in that situation now those types of bills and legislation aren't going anywhere right now David but the Democrats hope is that they'll have control of the White House the House and the Senate come 2021 in which they see an opportunity maybe the only opportunity in this political climate for bills such as that to advance on the f.e.c. As we know it to change demonstrably well in the vast scale of the federal budget the $70000000000.00 or so a year that is allocated to the f.e.c. Is chump change but you know $70000000.00 you'd like to see something for the money and right now the f.e.c. Is about as perfectly unfunctional branch of the federal government as you can find want to thank our guests Dave Levinthal He's the lead reporter on federal politics for the Center for Public Integrity day Frank so much for being with us on here and there it has been my pleasure thank you that's our story for today I'm Dave marish . Research and production assistant for if you're in there by Amy marish in Superman and Mary Lou Cooper operational control by Sean Connelly are seen. Here in there's a production of k s f r f m one a 1 point one set of New Mexico you can find program notes and listen to podcasts on our website Dave's marish dot com subscribe to here or there on i Tunes Spotify or stitcher or listen online at a s.f. Fark dot org Follow us on Twitter after 2 Farish so far and on Facebook after you're in there with gay marriage join. Again when next we go there in church . Here and there is funded in part by the Rebbe and David Logue. 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