Democrashield.com

George W. Bush and the Roadblock Republicans are intent on shutting down the Federal Election Commission before the 2008 elections. More from The Washington Post:

The federal agency in charge of policing the torrent of political spending during the upcoming presidential primaries will, for all practical purposes, shut its doors on New Year’s Eve.

The Federal Election Commission will effectively go dark on Jan. 1 because Congress remains locked in a standoff over the confirmation of President Bush’s nominees to the panel. As a consequence, the FEC will enter 2008 with just two of six members — short of the four votes needed for the commission to take any official action.

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Here’s what that means for the upcoming elections:

Although the 375 auditors, lawyers and investigators at the FEC will continue to process work already before them, a variety of matters that fall to the commissioners will be placed on hold indefinitely. Chief among them are deciding whether to launch investigations into possible campaign finance violations and determining the penalties.

Seven presidential candidates have applied to receive public matching funds for their campaigns, but they may not be able to access the money until the FEC certifies their requests. That takes four votes.

The national political parties each anticipate an infusion of about $1 million from the U.S. Treasury to help pay for their national conventions. Releasing that money takes four votes.

And then there is a range of vexing campaign finance questions that hang in limbo: Can a firm that operates a blimp accept unlimited contributions to fly it over New Hampshire with Ron Paul’s name on the side? Can a senator use his campaign account as a legal defense fund? How will campaigns comply with the new law that requires them to identify the lobbyists who are collecting campaign checks on their behalf?

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What’s holding the confirmation process up? The usual suspects, of course: George W. Bush and the Roadblock Republicans.

The conflict started when Bush nominated Hans A. von Spakovsky–who infamous for supporting right-wing voter suppression laws–to serve on the FEC.  Spakovsky supported the GOP’s Texas gerrymandering scheme, which redrew Texas’ Congressional districts to the benefit of Republicans and unseated 4 duly-elected Democratic Representatives in the process. In addition, Spakovsky supported legislation in Georgia to require photo identification for voting–a strategy that Republicans use to keep the poor (who are overwhemingly Democratic) from voting.

Simply put, Spakovsky is nowhere near moderate or independent enough to serve on the FEC; Senate Democrats realized this and, rightly, refused his confirmation. In retaliation for having their extremist nominee blocked, the Roadblock Republicans resorted to playing politics, blocking two Democratic nominees to the election commission.

This is nothing new–the Republicans are notorious for undermining our democracy through manipulating election laws and the voting process.  That’s why they’ve jumped at the chance to shut down the FEC–it’s good for the GOP if nobody’s looking over their shoulders and keeping them honest.  The remains of the DeLay-Abramoff network of anonymous donors, shady organizations and money laundering still exist–without the FEC, nothing keeps Republicans from restarting their illegal election machine.

Once again, the Roadblock Republicans keep our government from doing its job, putting their partisan interest ahead of the American people. We deserve honest candidates and transparent campaigns, yet–once again–the Republican Party is more than willing to stand in the way of clean elections.