On March 29, 2005, I revealed that new FEC Commissioner Hans A. von Spakovsky was claiming the authorship of a previously anonymous article (authored by “Publius”) about election administration reform. I was surprised both that someone at the DOJ considering these issues would write about them in an anonymous way and that the Commissioner, who is a recess appointee and still must be confirmed if he is to serve a full term on the FEC, would now publicly claim responsibility for the article.
The ACLU has now complained about the Commissioner’s authorship of an anonymous article while at the DOJ (thanks to Ed Still for posting the letter) and this Atlanta Journal Constitution article discusses the controversy. “The article was available Monday under von Spakovsky’s name and biography on the Federal Election Commission Web site, but appeared to have been removed after inquiries to his office about the ACLU letter.”
Now how does removing the article at this point help anyone? This is surely not the last we will hear of this issue.