FEC: Follow the Law

Every once in a while the supposed paper of record in Washington, DC, the Post, will screw something up so badly that it makes me laugh until it hurts. Yesterday's Editorial on the FEC is one such time. In this editorial, the Post blasts the Commission for failing to follow the law as written by Congress.

ASSIGNED BY Congress to write regulations implementing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, the Federal Election Commission has instead spent the past few years writing and defending rules that would undermine it.

The Post has been in business for quite sometime and I will give the benefit of the doubt to the editors about their intelligence and familiarity of the legislative process. However, they should know that Congress rountine punts on definitional issues in the laws it writes.

One of the key features of the McCain-Feingold Monstronsity--sorry--Act is a ban on soft money. In writing the language for the ban, Congress chose the words solicit or direct. The FEC, by simply looking in a dictionary, interpreted solicit to mean "ask." Apparently this common sense defintion was a failure to follow the guidance of Congress according to the Post.

But in writing its regulations, the FEC interpreted "solicit" to mean explicitly "ask" -- rejecting proposals that soliciting include suggesting or recommending soft-money donations. But as the appeals court, in an opinion by Judge David S. Tatel, correctly found, the FEC's cramped definition would "reopen the very loophole" it was supposed to close.

Fine, here is a little Thesaurus search on the word "solicit," resulting in:

accost, apply, approach, ask, beg, beseech, bespeak, bum, cadge, call, canvass, challenge, claim, crave, demand, desire, drum, drum up, entreat, exact, go, hawk, hit on, hit up, hustle, implore, importune, inquire, mooch, panhandle, peddle, petition, plead, postulate, pray, promote, proposition, query, question, refer, request, require, requisition, resort, seduce, seek, sponge, steer, sue for, supplicate, touch, tout, turn, whistle for

I don't see suggest or encourage there. So lets try those two words:

encourage: animate, applaud, boost, brighten, buck up, buoy, cheer, cheer up, comfort, console, embolden, energize, enhearten, enliven, excite, exhilarate, fortify, galvanize, gladden, goad, hearten, incite, inspire, inspirit, instigate, praise, prick, prop up, psych up, push, rally, reassure, refresh, restore, revitalize, revivify, rouse, spur, steel, stimulate, stir, strengthen, sway

Nope--no solicit or ask there.

Suggest: advance, advise, advocate, broach, commend, conjecture, exhort, move, offer, offer suggestion, plug, pose, prefer, propone, propose, proposition, propound, put, put forward, recommend, steer, submit, theorize, tip, tip off, tout

Again--no solicit or ask. One could get close with the work "exhort" but if you search ask, you get this:

angle, appeal, apply, beg, beseech, bite, bum, call for, charge, claim, command, contend for, crave, demand, entreat, file for, hit, hustle, implore, impose, knock, levy, mooch, order, petition, plead, pray, promote, request, requisition, seek, solicit, sue, supplicate, touch, urge.

Hmmm! Looks to me like the FEC got this one right. See if Congress wanted to be more explicit about what they meant, they could have simply added the words suggest, encourage, solicit, or direct soft money. Pretty simple. But the FEC only had the word solicit to work with.

By the way, although complete, my research into the legislative history of this provision does not mention anything about what Congress meant about the term solicit--other than its commonly accepted definition. Congress and the plaintiffs in Shays cannot argue about a definition given by the FEC if they don't provide a little more guidance. To do so after the fact is disingenuous at best and exploitative at worst.