A senator madam president . The presiding officer the senator from minnesota. Ms. Klobuchar madam president , are we in a quorum call . The presiding officer no, we are not. Ms. Klobuchar madam president , we are here today to vote on a nominee to be a commissioner at the federal election commission, the independent Agency Responsible for enforcing federal Campaign Finance laws. I am deeply disappointed in todays vote which is a departure from the senates longstanding tradition of considering f. E. C. Nominees on a bipartisan basis and another step in eroding the fra decisions of the the traditions of the senate all for a candidate that hold extreme views towards the agency that he would be appointed to. Prior to today, the senate has voted to confirm 47 f. E. C. Nominees and 42 of those nominees have been confirmed through a bipartisan process. As the ranking democrat on the rules committee, i have repeatedly urged my republican colleagues to work with us to get the f. E. C. Running a
Host joining us on newsmakers is Ellen Weintraub. She is the chair of the federal election commission. Joining us here for the questioning is Maggie Severns, reporter for politico. And michelle ye hee lee, who covers money and politics for the Washington Post. To both of you, thanks for being with us. Chairman weintraub, thank you for joining us. Let me begin with the enforcement mechanism that the fec has. You do not have a quorum. You do not have a majority. So what type of authority, what type of power do you have in enforcing fec laws . Chair weintraub well, the laws will be enforced, they are just not going to be enforced right now. There is a five year statute of limitations. No one should be under any illusions that if they do something now because of a lack of quorum, there will not be any enforcement. It is unfortunate we dont have a quorum. It is inexcusable, in my view. We had two commissioners who resigned, one two years ago, another almost two years ago. Those seats were n
Enforcement. It is unfortunate we dont have a quorum. It is inexcusable, in my view. We had two commissioners who resigned, one two years ago, another almost two years ago. Those seats were never filled. Host why . Chair weintraub i dont know. That is something i have no control over. The nominations have to be made by the president and confirmed by the senate. I think it is inexcusable that those nominations were not made. It is easy to get over the long vacancies. We should have never been in this situation we found ourselves in. We are down to a quorum of four. Another commissioner decided to resign. That left us with only three. It takes four commissioners to initiate investigations, to authorize penalties and approve conciliation agreements. Which is usually the way we conclude them. However, people should know before we lost the quorum, we authorized a number of investigations. We are at a high point in a decade in the number of investigations we have ongoing. As soon as we get c
Illusions that if they do something now because of a lack of quorum, there will not be any enforcement. It is unfortunate we dont have a quorum. It is inexcusable, in my view. We had two commissioners who resigned, one two years ago, another almost two years ago. Those seats were never felt. Never filled. Host why . Chair weintraub i dont know. That is something i have no control over. The nominations have to be made by the president and senate. It is easy to get over the long vacancies. We should have never been in this situation we found ourselves in. We are down to a quorum of four. Another commissioner decided to resign. That left us with only three. Totakes four commissioners initiate investigations, to authorize penalties and approve conciliation agreements. However, people should know before we lost the quorum, we authorized a number of investigations. We are at a high point in a decade in the number of investigations we have ongoing. As soon as we get commissioners back in, we
We were very pleased to welcome them here because they complement the research and Teaching Mission of the university so well. The center for president ial history promotes the study of u. S. Presidency through teaching, research, Public Outreach events and also through its collective memory project which is an oral history run by staff on the center who film and record archives of people who have been in various administrations as well as local officials who work closely with those administrations. The center also runs a very robust postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Its been in effect for an five years and its rapidly become probably the most influential and famous Fellowship Program of its kind. Each who completes the term has published a book or contracted a book at a Major University press such as harvard, cornell, and they all get jobs and thats a good thing. Were very proud of them. The center for president ial history complements the work we do. In addition to the work they do in