Campaign finance mavens John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., are joining forces once again - this time to block President Obama's nomination of labor lawyer John J. Sullivan to the Federal Election Commission.
If confirmed by the Senate, Sullivan would fill one of three Democratic seats on the evenly divided FEC, taking over from Democrat Ellen Weintraub, who continues to sit on the commission even though her term expired on April 30, 2007.
But the two senators, who succeeded in getting landmark campaign finance legislation enacted in 2002, have indicated that they will lift the hold only if Obama picks two more nominees to replace FEC Chairman Steven T. Walther, a Democrat, and commissioner Donald F. McGahn II, a Republican, whose terms ran out on May 1.
"Until the White House nominates replacements for the two other commissioners whose terms have expired, we cannot consent to Mr. Sullivan's confirmation," McCain and Feingold said in a joint statement. "The FEC is currently mired in anti-enforcement gridlock; the president must nominate new commissioners with a demonstrated commitment to the existence and enforcement of the campaign finance laws."
Jim Manley, a spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Reid supports Sullivan's nomination and "there is no reason to hold up a pending nomination for additional names."
A White House official did not respond to questions about the hold, but reiterated Obama's support for Sullivan.
"After 20 years of practice, John Sullivan has a deep understanding and respect for federal election law," the official said. "He will approach any issue that comes before him on the FEC with seriousness and integrity, and we hope the Senate will confirm him quickly."
During his presidential run, Obama's decision to not accept public financing for both the nomination and general election campaigns worried many of those pushing to reduce the influence of money on elections. But Obama sought to reassure them by promising that as president he would try to fix the system.
Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said Obama has done nothing to live up to those promises, and praised the move by McCain and Feingold. Sloan said their hold likely has little to do with Sullivan. Rather, she said, the senators are "trying to force the president's hand" on overhauling the agency and replacing McGahn, whom she called a force for campaign finance deregulation.
"I'm really glad they did it. The FEC is a disaster, it couldn't be worse," Sloan said. "[Obama] is letting Don McGahn run the place into the ground."
But some advocates of stronger campaign finance enforcement have criticized Obama's choice of Sullivan, who has been a campaign lawyer at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) since 1997.
As associate general counsel of SEIU, Sullivan questioned the need for disclosure rules on advertisements aimed at influencing voters. And in 2006, he filed comments with the FEC questioning limits on coordinated communications between candidates and outside groups, such as labor unions.
After Sullivan's selection, J. Gerald Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, said in a statement, "The gusto with which Mr. Sullivan has bashed important elements" of the 2002 campaign finance law (PL 107-155) "and repeatedly taken radical deregulatory positions does not inspire confidence."
In his testimony before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee last month, Sullivan addressed Hebert's comments and made it clear that he would respect Supreme Court precedent when enforcing federal election law.
Meredith McGehee, the policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, said that she was "very pleased" about the hold, but that it has nothing to do with Sullivan personally.
"I think there's a pretty clear notion here that Mr. Sullivan's nomination will proceed," McGehee said. "This is about McGahn, and that is a battle worth having. ... He is using his position to render most of the campaign finance laws meaningless."
But Center for Competitive Politics Chairman Bradley A. Smith, a former FEC commissioner and an ardent critic of the 2002 law, vehemently disagrees. He called on McCain and Feingold to lift the hold, saying it is "congressional meddling with the independence of the FEC at its worst."
"This vindictive move by McCain and Feingold is akin to announcing they won't vote to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court unless Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are replaced, too," Smith said in a statement. "FEC Republicans, including apparent hold target Don McGahn, are faithfully exercising their duties in light of legitimate concerns about their constitutional and statutory authority, not simply bulldozing ahead with burdensome campaign finance regulation despite Supreme Court rulings rolling back portions of McCain-Feingold and the reach of campaign finance restrictions as a whole."
