Potter's way - Federal Election Commission vice chairman Trevor Potter

Will Trevor Potter give teeth to one of Washington's most toothless watchdogs?

Potter is the newest member of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the government agency in Washington that's supposed to enforce campaign finance law. Except for its acclaimed public records room, however, the FEC has a reputation of helping the political parties and candidates dodge the law. Some say Congress rigged the commission, giving it three Republican and three Democratic members who often vote along party lines, resulting in deadlock and inaction.

FEC critics were dismayed at first by the appointment of Potter, a lawyer for the '88 Bush-Quayle campaign finance committee and a former partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Wiley Rein & Fielding, which represents the Republican National Committee and other GOP entities. The natty, apple-cheeked Potter in fact helped to defend the Bush campaign against allegations that it helped coordinate the "independent" Willie Horton ad campaign in 1988, which would have violated federal law. (The FEC dropped the case.)

"Could a person with these close ties to a particular party and with an extensive record of advising that party on federal election campaign law fairly interpret the election laws' application to that party?" Elizabeth Hedlund, FEC Watch Project director at the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, asked in 1991 testimony before Congress.

But Hedlund has become cautiously optimistic. "He's handed surprises not just to critics and doubters but to those who backed his nomination," now says. "They thought they were getting a good Republican. What they got was a good lawyer." Kenneth Gross, who formerly headed FEC's legal enforcement division, concurs. "He's taken positions on issues that have shown an aggressiveness we haven't seen before," Gross says.

FEC watchers say Potter (recently elevated to vice chair) is shaking up the moribund commission by providing a deadlock-breaking vote. Potter has supported increased civil penalties and more commission rulemaking so that candidates and political parties are clear on what they can and cannot do. He has also pushed for tougher rules requiring candidates to identify their contributors. In the 1992 presidential election, for example, 63 percent of the Bush campaign's donors of $200 or more did not name their occupation or employer, while 56 percent of Clinton's donors failed to do so, according to Hedlund's group.

While these changes are important, it's unclear what will happen on a number of major political money abuses the FEC must address, such as the subterranean flow of illegal $100,000 contributions into presidential elections.

And Potter did not buck his party and provide the deadlock breaking vote on one prominent case that was decided recently by the FEC. Joining his fellow Republicans, he rejected the FEC legal staff's opinion and voted to allow the National Republican Senatorial Committee and its Democratic counterpart to make additional expenditures in a recent Georgia U.S. Senate runoff election. (Ironically, the eventual loser, Wyche Fowler, has since been appointed a non-voting member of the FEC by the Senate Democratic leadership.)

Potter downplays his role in shaking up the FEC, saying it already was eyeing improvements when he got there. And he says the FEC is destined to get tougher in the years ahead. With more political money than ever flooding the system and "people being more creative in scheming to evade the law," the FEC will ask the Clinton administration for more money to do its job, he says.

COPYRIGHT 1993 Common Cause Magazine
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group