Promoting Change, Not Paralysis, at the FEC

The June 15 editorial "Deadlocked in Regulation" claimed that the Federal Election Commission is "paralyzed from acting" and "deadlocked along party lines." Those statements are not true.

Since we joined the FEC a year ago, the agency has resolved more than 350 cases, resulting in excess of $1.5 million in penalties.

As an example of our supposed inaction, the editorial cited the case of a novice Democratic candidate for Congress who, following a landslide defeat, became ensnared by an ambiguous rule involving campaign reports. It was at best a minor violation that wasn't spotted by the FEC until six months after the election.

Nonetheless, in late 2007, the commissioners at the time voted to go ahead with the case -- without letting the candidate address the commission.

It was wrong to seek a significant penalty from a candidate for such a minor issue. In similar circumstances, both the FEC and the courts have been far more lenient.

If anything, the example cited in the editorial highlights a troubling disparity in campaign finance law: Rote enforcement of hyper-technical rules often has an unfair impact on the inexperienced. Fixing these problems is the sort of change we have promoted.

The editorial asked: "What's worse than a federal agency that lacks the quorum of commissioners necessary to act on a matter?" Our answer is: an agency that ignores fairness and due process and that discourages political participation by ordinary citizens.

MATTHEW S. PETERSEN

Vice Chairman