Left Reveals View of FEC as Tool to Oppose Republicans

Over the long weekend, Democrat FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel resigned from the FEC.  We've catalogued Commissioner Ravel's partisanship, passion for regulating internet speech, questioning of citizens' loyalty based on their employer, charges of dysfunction aimed at Republican commissioners following the law, inconsistent application of the law, and many other questionable statements and actions during her tenure at the FEC.  

Of course, in her letter of resignation to President Trump and a 24-page exit report on "Dysfunction and Deadlock," she repeated the same trite campaign finance "reform" rhetoric perpetuated by the left despite being disproved by recent history:

Ravel’s resignation letter is filled with the same sort of tired Democratic rhetoric on campaign finance, demanding the overturning of Citizens United, pushing for expanded public (i.e., taxpayer) financing of political campaigns, and decrying the evils of “dark money.”  

Yet President Trump showed the complete intellectual bankruptcy of the campaign-finance “reform” movement in his stunning presidential-election victory. According to the FEC’s own data, among large donors ($2,000+), Hillary Clinton out-raised Trump $175 million to $27 million, a ratio of 6.5 to 1. Despite this, and the almost unanimous support she enjoyed from our media and cultural elites, Clinton couldn’t defeat Trump. Furthermore, Bernie Sanders, an eccentric and aging socialist with no establishment backing, came close to beating Hillary in the Democratic primary despite being outspent among those same $2,000+ donors by a ratio of more than 50 to 1. . . . 

The 2016 election was, for anyone who had eyes to see it, the most dramatic repudiation possible of the false notion that big donors determine the fate of our candidates or our politics. Given such facts, Ravel’s cri de coeur is more unintentional comedy than serious political analysis. But the media refuse to report it that way because to do so would be to repudiate their Democratic party allies, while casting a favorable light on the candidacy of Donald Trump, whom they loathe.​ 

But to keep the anti-Trump "reformers" from being too distraught about Ravel's departure, Ravel and her allies at the FEC have the strongly partisan, "resistance" altFEC Twitter feed, which, according to Ravel's friends at the Center for Public Integrity, "offers decidedly Ravel-esque, and often anti-Trump, critiques of the agency."  Recent tweets have been illuminating and have confirmed what many in the conservative community have long known and feared: that Democrats see "effective" speech regulation as a tool to oppose and hurt Republicans.

Even with the exit of Commissioner Ravel, no Republican or conservative speaker, especially those who must wade through the bureaucratic nightmare of an FEC complaint, can trust the FEC to act impartially while Democratic commissioners and "reform"-minded FEC staff sponsor explicitly anti-Republican messages and use campaign finance regulation as a tool to disadvantage Republicans.  Look for a post tomorrow on Ann Ravel's friend and ally at the FEC, Commissioner Ellen Weintraub.