In MUR 5724. Republican Commissioners Peterson and Hunter (with McGahn recused) write: “The Commission’s contradictory approaches in past matters involving family gifts provide inadequate notice to the regulated community about what is permitted and what is not. At this point, respect for due process and fundamental fairness demands that the Commission articulate, either by rule or through policy statement, the permissible boundaries relating to family gifts before pursuing future enforcement actions in this area.” Democratic commissioners Weintraub and Bauerly respond: “The Commission’s failure to enforce the law in any particular case does not change the law, entitle individuals to ignore the law, or so ‘hopelessly muddle’ the law that it can no longer be enforced.” (More from BNA.)
A reader sympathetic to the Democratic commissioners’ position queries: “Does an FEC Commissioner’s public announcement that he or she will not enforce a provision of FECA that has been validly enacted and specifically upheld by the Supreme Court constitute good cause that would justify the commissioner’s removal by the President?”