Rick Hasen's web log
December 16, 2005
Breaking News: FEC Nominees Announced
The White House has issued this press release (to be buried on Friday night?):
President George W. Bush today announced his intention to nominate four individuals to serve in his Administration:
The President intends to nominate Robert D. Lenhard, of Maryland, to be a Member of the Federal Election Commission, for the remainder of a six-year term expiring April 30, 2011. Mr. Lenhard currently serves as Associate General Counsel for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO. He previously served as an Associate with Kirschner, Weinberg & Dempsey. Earlier in his career, Mr. Lenhard worked for the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, AFL-CIO. He received his bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University and his JD from the University of California, Los Angeles.
The President intends to nominate David M. Mason, of Virginia, to be a Member of the Federal Election Commission, for the remainder of a six-year term expiring April 30, 2009. Mr. Mason currently serves as Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission. He previously served as a Senior Fellow in Congressional Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to that, Mr. Mason was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense. Earlier in his career, he served as a Legislative Assistant to Senator John Warner and Legislative Director to Representative Tom Bliley. Mr. Mason received his bachelor's degree from Claremont McKenna College.
The President intends to nominate Hans von Spakovsky, of Georgia, to be a Member of the Federal Election Commission, for the remainder of a six-year term expiring April 30, 2011. Mr. von Spakovsky currently serves as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. He previously served the Justice Department as a trial attorney for the Voting Reform Initiative. Prior to that, Mr. von Spakovsky served as a government affairs consultant. Earlier in his career, he was Assistant Vice President, Counsel and Secretary for Confederation Life Insurance Company in Rehabilitation. Mr. von Spakovsky received his bachelor's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his JD from Vanderbilt University.
The President intends to nominate Steven T. Walther, of Nevada, to be a Member of the Federal Election Commission, for the remainder of a six-year term expiring April 30, 2009. Mr. Walther is currently a Partner at Walther, Key, Maupin, Oats, Cox & LeGoy, a law firm he co-founded in 1972. Earlier in his career, he was an attorney at Jones Vargas. Mr. Walther received his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame and his JD from the University of California, Berkley.
One can have various opinions about these nominations (I expect a lot of fireworks from Democrats, from reformers and from Senator McCain), but the misspelling of my alma mater in the Walther bio is inexcusable.
Hmmmm, Hans von Spakovsky . . . I know that name is familar. Where I have heard of Hans von Spakovsky?
Oh, you mean THAT Hans von Spakovsky!
Von Spakovsky, a longtime activist in the voting-integrity cause, has emerged as the Administration's chief operative on voting rights. Before going to Washington, he was a lawyer in private practice and a Republican appointee to the Fulton County Registration and Election Board, which runs elections in Atlanta. He belonged to the Federalist Society, a prominent organization of conservative lawyers, and had also joined the board of advisers of a lesser-known group called the Voting Integrity Project.Posted by: Ian at December 17, 2005 09:34 AMThe V.I.P. was founded by Deborah Phillips, a former county official of the Virginia Republican Party, as an organization devoted principally to fighting voting fraud and promoting voter education. In 1997, von Spakovsky wrote an article for the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, a conservative research group, that called for an aggressive campaign to purge the election rolls of felons. Within months of that article's publication, the V.I.P. helped put von Spakovsky's idea into action. Phillips met with the company that designed the process for the removal of alleged felons from the voting rolls in Florida, a process that led, notoriously, to the mistaken disenfranchisement of thousands of voters, most of them Democratic, before the 2000 election.