Opinion: Ann Ravel is right about the need to control money in politics - The Mercury News

 

Before stepping down from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) this week, Ann Ravel warned that the dismantling of the agency she is departing from could be “a test run for the people who do not believe in regulatory agencies or do not believe in government at all.”

In an interview on Every Voice’s podcast, Ravel said ideologues opposed to the FEC’s mission of enforcing campaign finance laws and ensuring transparency and accountability in our elections had “accomplished decimation of this agency so well, and it was so purposeful, that this is going to be the first of many.”

For a president that promised to “drain the swamp” of wealthy special interests, Ravel’s departure sets up a test: Will President Donald Trump show he’s committed to keeping wealthy special interests in check or will it prove to be an election-year ploy without substance?

Trump promised voters he wouldn’t be beholden to big donors in Washington, then he appointed them to his cabinet. He said lobbyists would lose their power if he was elected, but he weakened Obama-era restrictions on their influence in the White House. He said his opponents would be “puppets” of Wall Street and then he installed a handful of Goldman Sachs executives and alumni in his administration.

In ways big and small, his pledge to “drain the swamp” looks like a broken promise so far.

Now, he has an opportunity to start to reverse course.

Today the FEC is known for dysfunction, gridlock, and inaction. That hasn’t always been the case.

The agency was created after the Watergate scandals to serve as a watchdog and regulator for campaign finance laws. It was created with partisan balance, requiring that no more than three of its six members be of the same party, so that members of one party could not use the agency to enforce the laws unfairly on another.

The balance, though, became the source of its weakness. Over time, just like many institutions in Washington, the agency became hopelessly gridlocked. In the past ten years alone, as Ravel detailed in a new report, deadlocked votes have increased dramatically while fines for civil penalties have decreased.

The agency has failed to enact new disclosure regulations following the Citizens United decision. Former Republican commissioner Don McGahn — who gleefully accepts responsibility for breaking the agency — even once admitted he would “plead guilty as charged” to “not enforcing the law as Congress passed it.”

McGahn’s current job? Donald Trump’s chief lawyer in the White House.

Ravel, a former Santa Clara County counsel and California Fair Political Practices Commission chair, spent her tenure highlighting the problems of the agency and attempting to get it working again. She traveled the country with fellow commissioner Ellen Weintraub listening to Americans’ growing concerns about a political system that too often works for the wealthy and well-connected.

Trump’s test is whether he’ll replace Ravel, and any of the other five commissioners who are serving on expired terms, with someone who believes democracy works best when all of us have a voice and our laws are enforced — or someone like McGahn, who has fought for years to give the wealthy and powerful more influence.

FEC nominees, if he makes any, will show whether Trump is serious about shaking up Washington, DC where it matters instead of weakening regulatory agencies and government bodies that work to implement the laws of our county.

David Donnelly is president and CEO of Every Voice, a national organization to reduce the influence of money in politics. Laura Friedenbach is deputy communications director at Every Voice and host of the Every Voice Speaks podcast. They wrote this for The Mercury News.