Inaugural Wishes for the F.E.C.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/opinion/22mon3.html?ref=opinion

For all the talk of change in Barack Obama’s Washington, it is cynical business as usual for the ever-feckless Federal Election Commission. As a senator, Mr. Obama’s signal reform achievement was a new law designed to crack down on lobbyist “bundlers” who package money from fat-cat donors seeking political favors. The F.E.C. — the bipartisan watchdog that loves to play dead — has now issued regulations for the law that poke it full of loopholes.

The regulations are an open insult to the explicit intent of Mr. Obama and his co-sponsor, Senator Russ Feingold, that “the broadest possible disclosure” of bundlers be made by federal candidates. Instead, one loophole circumvents the law’s $15,000 reporting threshold for fund-raising events by allowing multiple bundlers to divide the final swag’s accounting. Four bundlers greasing a candidate with a $50,000 take would fall below the disclosure limit, averaging $12,500 a head.

Even more egregious, the agency would allow candidates to avoid disclosure even if they knew as a plain fact that their friendly bundlers orchestrated hundreds of thousands of dollars in separate donations. The gimmick is that personal knowledge of the gift isn’t enough if there’s no written record to back it. This enshrines the nods and winks of quid-pro-quo shopping at a new level.

We have had little enthusiasm for the F.E.C. But the future only looks grimmer now that Donald McGahn has taken over as chairman. He is a party wheelhorse who was formerly the ethics lawyer for Tom DeLay, the ethically impaired ex-majority leader who quit under a cloud of money-raising scandals.

As president, Mr. Obama will have the power to confront the F.E.C.’s machinations. Three of the six commissioners are due to be replaced. Instead of rubber-stamping nominees suggested by Congressional leaders, he should broaden the process — with a blue-ribbon search panel, perhaps. It would be a real change to have an election watchdog with integrity and bite.