The rumors turned out to be true. The Brennan Center’s Myrna Perez has withdrawn her nomination and one of the Democratic-appointed EAC commissiners. In her place, Matthew Butler.

Butler’s current twitter bio makes it sounds like he could be quite partisan in this position: “Political & Non-Profit Management Consultant. Current interim ED @FilmAid. Fmr. CEO @MMFA. Opinions my own and probably not popular with many fans of Fox News.” [UPDATE: In retrospect, this way of phrasing my problem with Butler is off the mark.  I don’t know how partisan he’d actually be in the job.  See my follow up post here.]

As I explain in The Voting Wars, there was a time when a few courageous EAC commissioners could have made the Commission something to get above the partisan sniping. But they were shut down and that moment regrettably has passed.