Judge tosses Democratic committees’ lawsuit over the Federal Election Commission’s independence

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to block President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing an executive order that Democratic Party officials claim could undermine the independence of the Federal Election Commission.

U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali in Washington ruled late Tuesday that there’s insufficient evidence that the Republican administration intends to apply a key portion of Trump’s executive order to the FEC or its commissioners.

“This Court’s doors are open to the parties if changed circumstances show concrete action or impact on the FEC’s or its Commissioners’ independence,” the judge wrote.

The Democratic Party’s three national political committees sued after Trump signed the executive order in February. The order was intended to increase his control of the entire executive branch, including over agencies such as the FEC, a six-person bipartisan board created by Congress to independently enforce campaign finance law.

The Feb. 18 order said the officials at those agencies “must be supervised and controlled by the people’s elected President” and demanded that no executive branch employee advance a legal view that contradicts the president or the attorney general.

Trump issued the order after he abruptly got rid of FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat who said her ouster did not follow legal protocols. The FEC is just one of several independent agencies Trump has sought to control and targeted with firings.

The plaintiffs — the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — asked the judge to rule that a law insulating the FEC from partisan control is constitutional. They also asked for a preliminary injunction enjoining the Trump administration from applying part of the executive order to the FEC and its commissioners.

“Americans are legally guaranteed fair elections with impartial referees — not a system where Donald Trump can dictate campaign rules he wants from the White House,” the plaintiffs wrote in a statement. “Democrats will use every tool at our disposal, including aggressively confronting Trump’s illegal actions in the courts, to defend Americans’ right to free and fair elections.”

But government attorneys told the judge that the Trump administration has no plans to apply the executive order to the FEC.

The judge said he can’t conclude from the text of the executive order alone that Trump or Attorney General Pam Bondi are on the verge of taking such an “extraordinary step.” The order doesn’t single out the FEC and applies broadly to all executive branch employees, the judge concluded.

“The Court does not doubt that the committees would have cause for profound concern were the FEC’s independence to be compromised,” he wrote. “Given the FEC’s central role in overseeing parties and campaigns, a compromise of its independence would pose an immense threat to our democratic elections, for all the reasons Congress established the FEC’s independence in the first place.”

The portion of the executive order challenged by the lawsuit has raised particular concern among campaign finance watchdogs, who call it a conflict of interest. Congress created the FEC in 1974 after the Watergate scandal with the goal of having it operate independently.

“This was not a hypothetical concern,” plaintiffs’ attorney David Fox said during an April 9 hearing. “And it’s not a hypothetical concern today.”

Justice Department attorney Jeremy Newman said the plaintiffs’ concerns are based on mere speculation that the FEC may take a regulatory action that they oppose.

“There is no live controversy here,” Newman told the judge.

“The commission is conducting its business as it was two weeks ago, two months ago, two years ago,” FEC attorney James McGinley said during the hearing.

Trevor Potter, a former Republican FEC commissioner and founder of the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, said the FEC is responsible for enforcing the law against the president “as both a candidate and as a holder of federal office.”

“It is crucial that the agency retain its independence from the White House, so it is able to hold the president — any president — and their political party accountable,” Potter said in a statement.

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Swenson reported from New York.