You can find news coverage in the NY Times; Washington Post; USA Today. With some confusion and and possible answers out there regarding the meaning of the agreements reached yesterday, I need to ask: why didn’t the FEC undertake a 527 rulemaking? Rather than answer the questions obtusely as to which 527s will be treated by the FEC as political committees, the FEC could have set forth clear rules, which then could have been challenged in court by those who disagreed with them. We’ll still get those court challenges now, but added into that is a layer of uncertainty about how the FEC will treat other 527s, uncertainly which will only increase as the FEC’s composition changes in coming months. Probably there’s an internal FEC political answer to my question, but as a matter of public policy rulemaking clearly would have been a better option for clarity and expeditious resolution of these questions.