Facts Matter? Sorry, We Were Unaware of That
Ellen Weintraub, commissioner of the FEC
From this article:
The chair of the Federal Election Commission continues to call out President Donald Trump for repeating his unfounded voter fraud claims.
“To be suggesting to people … that if the candidate they choose doesn’t win that it is because of fraud, that undermines our democracy,” Ellen Weintraub said on CNN Monday. “It undermines people’s faith, and once that faith is broken, it is very hard to build up again.”
“Facts matter, and people of America need to be able to believe what their leaders tell them. It is damaging to our democracy to spread information that … is baseless,” Weintraub said. “There is no evidence of rampant voter fraud in 2016 or, really, in any previous election.
Weintraub’s latest remarks come days after she called on Trump in a letter to provide any proof he has for his bogus claim of widespread illegal voting in the 2016 election.
Weintraub’s Friday letter was in response to Trump telling reporters during a Thursday rally in New Hampshire that “thousands and thousands of people [came] in from locations unknown” to vote in the state in 2016. Trump then told rally-goers that the state was “taken away from us” despite no evidence of any voter fraud activity.
Weintraub has for years asked Trump for proof of the “astonishing voter-fraud scheme that he claims denied him” victory in New Hampshire.
Let’s slow down. Let’s take a moment out of our busy days, take a few deeps breaths, and let this sink in. The President of the United States is deliberately destroying American democracy for his own personal gain. We simply don’t care. We are shrugging this off: “Who cares? He’s kicking ass on the Southern Border.”
Our parents and grandparents didn’t fight the Nazis for this.
Craig,
Ellen Weintraub is hardly a shinning example of an unbiased public official or even a good servant of democracy !
The term of FEC commissioners is limited to six years, yet Weintraub, a Democrat activist married to a Democrat political operative, has remained unlawfully in office for 11 years! (so much for her adherence and respect for law and democratic process).
The failure of President Obama to replace her is now compounded by Congress and President Trump being unable to agree on a replacement.
In fact, during his eight year term, President Obama failed to appoint a single commissioner to the FEC ! This allowed Weintraub to cling illegally to her highly paid public sinecure and tighten her postion against incoming reformers.
As former FEC Chairman, Trevor Potter observed;
” The FEC has for some years become completely dysfunctional. This is a result of Weintraub’s stubborn resistance to any reform or leaving office. Weintraub sees the FEC as her private kingdom. As a result, the atmosphere is toxic and no new appointees want to serve in such an atmosphere. Today, there’s a lack of consensus on the FEC as to what the FEC’s job even is.”
Dave Leveinthal sums the issues up in his expose:
https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/how-washington-starves-its-election-watchdog/
The Trump administration should replace Ellen Weintraub, and indeed the entire commission under the existing rules. The commission only sits because no replacement commissioners have been nominated to replace the existing commissioners.
President Trump, has had great difficulty in getting nominations approved, but that doesn’t mean the President shouldn’t nominate candidates.
The difficulty is finding anyone, from either party willing to serve.
The solution to this impasse would be for Weintraub and her board to simply obey the law and resign. That would force the administration and Congress to comply with the law and appoint a new commission.
But, politicians, just like sharks don’t commit suicide.
The FEC lies at the heart of the US democratic system. The fact that President Obama allowed Ellen Weintraub to continue in office past her legal term, is a much greater attack on Democratic process than President Trump’s claims of “electoral fraud”.
Why President Trump, or Congress has failed to act, is equally inexplicable and shows a disturbing lack of regard for the rules of Democratic process.
Even more inexplicable is both Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., the committee’s ranking member, refuse to even discuss there reasons for ignoring this pressing problem.