-
-
related tags:
tagged w/ bipartisan
-
Pajamas Media » The Agency That Would Not Die
Chances are you’ve never heard of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) — chairman of the House Subcommittee on Elections — had this to say about the tiny and anonymous federal agency:
This is a classic example of what President Reagan said, that there’s nothing closer on Earth to eternal life than a temporary government program.
The Election Assistance Commission once was categorized as a “temporary” agency, authorized to operate for only three years. Nine years later, the story of this hapless agency has become a fascinating Washington tale of do-gooder intentions run amok, politics trumping good management, out-of-control spending, and federal programs expanding even after their mission had vanished. The EAC is an object lesson of how difficult it will be to reduce any federal spending and to downsize or eliminate federal programs.
The creation of the Election Assistance Commission dates back to the red-hot political battle that followed the 2000 presidential election. Angry liberal groups demanded the creation of a new program to oversee federal elections, which historically has been a state responsibility.
The EAC was intended to modernize state election equipment across the country. In 2002, the “Help America Vote Act” was passed, creating the agency but giving it a strict limit of three years of existence. To help states upgrade their equipment, the EAC doled out a staggering $4 billion.
The commission distributed its allotted money and completed its studies. Yet it is still operating in 2011 — an agency without a mission with nearly 50 full-time federal employees. Its budget has doubled to $18 million, without having anything to do. As a testament to its uselessness, in the last two fiscal years President Obama’s budget officials “zeroed out” its core grant-making budget.
Further, the commission cannot do business, as it doesn’t have a quorum of at least three commissioners. Two of the commissioners — both Democrats –have resigned, one of them under a political cloud.
Even by Washington standards, the EAC has been a spectacular mess. But that hasn’t stopped the agency from continuing on — or living lavishly. Half of its staff earn six-figure salaries. It is top heavy, with two of every three employees serving as executives. Only one out of three actually work on real programs.
Government has tried to shut the EAC down. Twice, the nation’s secretaries of state have passed resolutions calling for it to close its doors. The last resolution was renewed in 2010.
Today, there is a new initiative by Congress to abolish it — but liberal organizations are rallying. House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer recently raised the specter of another Florida debacle as a reason to keep it in place. He warned:
Abolishing the EAC would be an invitation to repeat mistakes that blemished our democracy in 2000.
However, it appears the combination of its own track record and current lack of a mission may simply doom it this time. A review of its record over nine years shows a remarkable history of failure.
By far the most important failure is that of hiring simple competency. Its appointed commissioners knew little about elections: of nine commissioners who have served there, only two ever served as election officials.
Founded as a non-partisan body, it has been accused of altering election research and charged with waging political partisanship. It ran afoul of the law, having admitted to violating civil service and discrimination laws — as well as the First Amendment.
Its assistance to states has been ridiculed by Democratic and Republican state officials. And it has been so financially mismanaged that its outside auditor quit.
In 2005, the influential National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) – which represents all state election officials — called for it to be phased out following the 2006 election. The vote was overwhelming and bipartisan.
Leading the charge was the dean of the election world, New Hampshire’s legendary Democrat William Gardner. For decades, Gardner has supervised the New Hampshire primary, the nation’s first presidential primary. Five years later, in 2010, the NASS repeated its call for the EAC to be abolished.
Rep. Harper now is taking the initiative to put a final end to the agency. He has introduced legislation to close it down permanently and to transfer its few remaining election duties to existing federal agencies. Harper told PJM:
This is an entity that has no business staying in business.
EAS spending confirms what many Americans fear about the hundreds of departments and agencies that dot our federal landscape. Looking under the hood is a revealing experience.
At a 2009 hearing of the House Appropriations Committee, Congress learned the commission not only failed its only audit, but that the records were such a mess they could not continue it. The audit was conducted by the national auditing firm of Clifton Gunderson, LLP under the direction of the agency’s Office of Inspector General. The IG told Congress in November 2008:
The EAC was unable to provide sufficient appropriate evidence to allow Clifton Gunderson to conduct its audit.
The IG further noted that the commission had failed to meet 20 of 29 internal controls for acceptable financial and management operations.
Even though at the time it was a small agency with less than 25 employees, the auditor found it was unable to account for $475,000 in travel vouchers. Another expenditure jumped out for the auditors: the agency had paid out nearly $7,000 for t-shirts for its employees — nearly $90 for each shirt.
Both Democrat and Republican state election officials agreed that the agency has been completely ineffective on the ground. Last month Gardner heaped scorn on the commission — he said its “best practices” guidelines were useless. In testimony before the House Administration Committee, he said it “is not something I would consider as being of value to my state.”
The commission’s technical election committee — the only real help the agency could offer states — has met only once since 2007. While it has published many papers, it still lacks any process for peer review of any of them. In 2008, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the former chairwoman of the House Administration Committee, noted that its research department had been “criticized or accused of altering research.”
Another scandal involved bare-knuckle politics at the seemingly non-partisan commission. A Democratic commissioner torpedoed the hiring of a new general counsel because he once was associated with Republicans. Democratic Commissioner Rosemary Rodriguez got her fellow Democrat to vote against his hiring, even though its executive director had approved him and sent out a letter of employment.
As later admitted by the commission in a press release:
The agency is in violation of civil service laws and regulations prohibiting discrimination based on political affiliation and discrimination based on non-merit grounds.
…
Such action could also violate the appointee’s Constitutional First Amendment right to freedom of association.
The commission settled with an undisclosed settlement to the hiree: a source told PJM that it was a “substantial” amount of money. The discovery of partisanship in part forced Rodriguez to leave the commission in early 2009. She took a job as an aide to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO).
Rep. Harper’s bill HR 672 may come up for a markup later this month. Will Congress and the administration really cut the program? As Harper said to me:
If we can’t eliminate the EAC, we can’t eliminate anything.Chances are you’ve never heard of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Rep.... more-
- Holly348328
- added this
- 9 months ago
- |
- 0 comments
-
-
Bipartisan Support of Tax Deal. Smart Move Win Win or a Losing Proposition?
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Saturday thanked voters who expanded the GOP’s ranks on Capitol Hill for the extension of all Bush-era tax cuts.The House approved the $858 billion legislation late Thursday night after it sailed through the Senate a day before. It extends Bush-era income tax cuts – including cuts for households with incomes above $250,000, a bitter pill for Democrats. “First, Republicans prevented a massive, job-killing ‘New Year’s Day tax increase.’ Before Congress acted, every American taxpayer was looking at a much higher tax bill in just a few weeks. Those higher taxes would have been devastating to millions of American families and small businesses and could have increased the risk of a ‘double-dip’ recession,” Cornyn said.
“But our bipartisan agreement with the White House changed all that. Our agreement keeps marginal income tax rates low, preserves the one-thousand-dollar per child tax credit, extends relief from the marriage penalty, blocks higher taxes on capital gains and dividends, protects at least 21 million additional families from the Alternative Minimum Tax and reduces the sting of the ‘death tax’ on families and small businesses,” he said.
But the bipartisan deal Obama struck with Republicans also slashes the employee payroll tax by 2 percent for one year, renews the estate tax and extends unemployment insurance benefits for 13 months.
Despite inclusion of some Democratic priorities like the unemployment insurance, Cornyn called the bill a political win for the GOP, one made possible by the November elections in which Republicans took back the House and expanded their numbers in the Senate. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/134335-cornyn-voters-blocked-obamas-pandering-to-left-wing-base-on-taxesSen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Saturday thanked voters who expanded the GOP’s... more-
- congoboy
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 3 comments
-
-
Obama slams GOP on unemployment benefits vote
Will the 4th time be the charm for the benefits bill?
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-41045-Miami-Unemployment-Examiner~y2010m7d20-Obama-challenges-GOP-on-unemployment-benefitsWill the 4th time be the charm for the benefits bill?... more-
- Glenn_Osrin
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 0 comments
-
-
Laura Bush praises Obama
At least some republicans can see that the President is doing a good job!-
- medinasoul
- added this
- 2 years ago
- |
- 0 comments
-
-
Moscow News: Karl Marx prediction/ U.S.present power monopoly would crash
After a long battle to secure democracy in the United States, it somehow became fashionable among the Founding Fathers in the early days of the republic to exclude all "dangerous factions" from the narrow field of political players.
John Madison warned in "Federalist Papers No. 10" against the prospects of "a number of citizens... who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." In other words, democratic institutions must be professionally tailored to fit the body politic in order to protect the lavish lifestyles and inordinate interests of the governing classes.
The greatest fear of America's Founding Fathers was "the mob," or rather those men who might be tempted, over time, to take exception with the rigid stratification of the social hierarchy. Many ingenious political technologies were thus forced on the people, such as the Electoral College, an anachronistic institution originally designed to prevent the undesirables from winning at the ballot box; the system is still in use today, together with a faulty voting apparatus that even "authoritarian" Venezuela has managed to fix.
Over time, the "problem" with factions was resolved: Since 1789, the United States - a land of 500 different cereal brands, 200 kooky colas, and 1,500 car models - is far less generous when it comes to providing choice in the political marketplace: Year after dismal year, U.S. voters get exactly two political choices: Democratic or Republican, take your pick. Not even the richest men in America (Ross Perot, for example) can smash through this Plexiglas ceiling. Yes, the spectacle of conventions, campaigns and champagne, not to mention the occasional articulate black man or fearless first female, are all quite fun to watch, but then what would a sham be without a whole lot of colorful distractions?
A curious thing about this two-party grip on power is that the theory of a ‘lame duck' president has lost all force; the U.S. president enjoys all the powers of a Mussolini, and then some. In fact, King George II has never enjoyed greater presidential powers than he does right now, in the twilight of his 8-year-old ham-fisted rule.
............
So how did the Democrats respond to Bush's request to socialize American capitalism through a taxpayer infusion of $700 billion? Hold on to your chair, dear reader, this is harsh.
And I quote DEMOCRATIC House Squeaker Nancy Pelosi: "We sent a message to Wall Street - the party is over... People have to know that this isn't a bailout of Wall Street. It's a buy-in so we can turn our economy around."
Um, Nancy, where I come from, when one group of people hands another group of people $700 billion dollars due to the latter's lack of common sense, this does not signal the "end of the party." Indeed, it portends the beginning of yet another bout of stupid behavior.
....
This sums up the unacceptable thing about American politics, which is the asinine belief that the two parties must always play nice, and not display too much "bipartisan politics," especially before dinner. Says who?
Even the word "bipartisan" is an affront, suggesting that we should be content with no more than two choices.
It is my humble prediction that without a third or fourth voice in the dense field of U.S. politics, the present power monopoly will crash, dragging capitalism to the historical depths with it. Exactly as Karl Marx predicted it would. After a long battle to secure democracy in the United States, it somehow became... more
