Senate committee to soon vote on FEC nominees

Introduction

The Senate Rules and Administration Committee will soon schedule an early September vote on two Federal Election Commission nominees, two sources close to the nomination process tell the Center for Public Integrity.

Such a vote means the full Senate could consider — and potentially approve — the nominations of Republican Lee E. Goodman, an attorney at law firm LeClairRyan, and Democrat Ann Ravel, chairwoman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, within weeks.

As of Friday evening, the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, of which Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is chairman, had not published an official notice of the vote.

(Update, Aug. 26, 2013, 3:39 p.m.: The committee today officially scheduled an “executive business meeting” to consider the nominations of Ravel and Goodman for 10 a.m. Sept. 10 at the Russell Senate Office Building.)

The Senate Rules and Administration Committee conducted a largely uneventful confirmation hearing for Ravel and Goodman in July.

At the time, committee members offered no indications that they’d oppose either nominee, with some even posing for photos with Goodman and Ravel after the hearing’s conclusion.

President Barack Obama nominated the pair on June 21, marking the first time in four years that he had sought to appoint someone to the FEC.

Obama’s only other nominee, labor lawyer John Sullivan, withdrew from consideration in 2010 after the full Senate failed to conduct a vote on his nomination.

The FEC’s five active commissioners are serving in “holdover status” despite each of their six-year terms having expired.

Goodman is slated to replace Vice Chairman Don McGahn, a Republican appointee whose term expired in 2009.

Ravel is due to replace a sixth commissioner, Democratic appointee Cynthia Bauerly, who resigned in February to become deputy director of workforce development at Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development.