I’ve received a few off-the-record emails now from people who don’t want to be quoted the upshot of which is the following: if you look at the history of Commissioner Mason’s voting on the commission, there have been times when he has strayed from the reservation and voted with Democrats rather than have a 3-3 deadlock on some issues. Republicans were never particularly happy with Mason for this reason, but not necessarily enough to dump him (presumably especially because all the political capital was being spent defending von Spakovsky). The McCain situation involving the public financing was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
This sounds quite plausible to me. But even assuming that’s true, then critics are still correct to say that Commissioner Mason was dumped because of the McCain situation, no? At least that was the immediate proximate cause. (Sorry, I’m in the midst of writing a torts book and I can’t resist.)