End Citizens United and Let America Vote Action Fund President Tiffany Muller released the following statement on today’s Senate Rules committee hearing on Donald Trump’s partisan FEC nominees:
“The lack of quorum at the FEC has presented a major problem for transparency, accountability, and foreign interference in our elections. Donald Trump and Senate Republicans have had years to give the agency a full quorum but instead purposely sat on their hands. Now, in the lame duck end of Trump’s presidency of corruption and attacks on our democracy, Mitch McConnnell and the Republican-controlled Senate are rushing two GOP partisan operatives, Sean Cooksey and Allen Dickerson, who will stonewall any action to uphold our campaign finance laws and hold violators accountable. A full and functioning FEC is a vital organ in our democracy, and President-elect Joe Biden believes strongly that our democracy works best when every voice is heard. He won this election in a landslide and should be given the opportunity to choose the next nominees to this crucial agency.”
Allen Dickerson is the legal director at the Institute for Free Speech (IFFS), a dark money organization funded by wealthy special interests and GOP mega-donors like the Kochs for the sole purpose of opposing campaign finance regulations and policies to protect the power of big money in politics. IFFS has opposed every major campaign finance proposal, including the once-in-a-generation democracy reforms in For The People Act, in order to protect the very special interests and megadonors who who fund the organization and benefit from our broken system.
Sean Cooksey currently serves as General Counsel to U.S. Senator Josh Hawley. Hawley launched his political career by creating a dark money group and hiding his benefactors from the public, benefitted from over $8 million in dark money spending in his 2018 election. He was also endorsed by the conservative group Citizens United responsible for that disastrous Supreme Court decision and argued that the Supreme Court “has gotten it right” on campaign spending law.
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