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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 un ....
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 ....
To officially recognize jerusalem as israels capital. Host good morning. Its thursday, december 7, 2017. Pearl harbor Remembrance Day across the country. It marks the 76th anniversary of the attack on pearl harbor. Flags have been lowered to halfstaff at the u. S. Capitol. The house and senate will both reconvene at 10 00 a. M. Today. At some point this morning on the senate floor, minnesota democrat al franken is expected to make an announcement about his political future, one day after new allegations of inappropriate behavior emerged and after over 30 of his fellow Democratic Senators called for him to resign. Thats where we begin this morning on the washington journal, as we take your calls and hear your thoughts. Phone lines republicans, 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. Independents, 2027488002. A special line this morning for minnesota residents, 2027488003. You ....
The first one, its tough. Obama lost 63 seats in 2010. Clinton lost 54 house seats in 1994. Even reagan in 1982 lost 28 seats answered started from a minority position. Theyre challenging. A good economy which were starting to see alleviates the dangers but its still a challenging environment, no oubt about it. You have 40 republicans stepping down or seeking other office . We saw one from new jersey just this week. So it is a challenging environment. In some ways having folks not tied to washington in the antid. C. Sentiment out there could be a good thing in some of these districts because theyre not tied to whats happening in washington. They could run as their first person. What race worries the most in terms of the house and senate, which one are you keeping a close eye on which could be the barometer for the mid term elections . If you look at some of the democrats up in the senate, we will find out if heitkamp and donnelly and mccaskill can be so partisan, vote against the tax c ....
Yeah. A good economy, which we are starting to see, it alleviates the dangers. But it is still a challenging environment for republicans. There is no doubt about that. And you now have more than 40 House Republicans who are either seeking another office or stepping down this year . Mr. Phillips right. Those are high numbers. You saw another one in from new jersey just this past week. It is a challenging environment. In some ways, having folks not tied to washington and the antid. C. Sentiment that is out there right now could be a good thing in some of these districts, actually, because they are not tied to what is happening in washington and they can run as their own person. Host what race worries you the most in terms of the house or the senate . Which one are you keeping a close eye on . It could be the barometer for the Midterm Elections. Mr. Phillips when you look a ....