Daily Dolt: Team America

Team America in comments:

# 2 Team America Says:
June 17th, 2009 at e
Gents, here’s the bottom line. The FEC complaint gudiance says the following:
“Receipt of Complaint
The Office of General Counsel (OGC) reviews each complaint to determine whether it states a violation within the jurisdiction of the Commission and satisfies the above criteria for a proper complaint. If the complaint does not meet these requirements, OGC notifies the complainant of the deficiencies.
Once a complaint is deemed sufficient, OGC assigns it a Matter Under Review (MUR) number, acknowledges receipt of the complaint and informs the complainant that the Commission will notify him or her when the entire case is resolved. Until then, the Commission is required by law to keep its actions regarding the MUR confidential.”
Apparently, the FEC thought the complaint was good enough to assign it a MUR number (and not return it to Venturi for deficiences), and force Michael Bond to respond.
Let’s see how Bond tries to weasel out of it.
Cheers, TA

Of course right above that is:

Any person may file a complaint if he or she believes a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Laws or Commission regulations has occurred or is about to occur. The complaint must be made in writing and sent to the Office of General Counsel, Federal Election Commission, 999 E Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20463. The original must be submitted along with three copies, if possible. Facsimile or e-mail transmissions are not acceptable. A complaint must comply with certain requirements. It must:
* Provide the full name and address of the person filing the complaint (called the complainant); and
* Be signed, sworn to and notarized. This means that the notary public’s certificate must say “…signed and sworn to before me…,” or words that connote the complaint was affirmed by the complainant, (such as “under penalty of perjury”).
Furthermore, in order for a complaint to be considered complete and proper, it should:
* Clearly recite the facts that show specific violations under the Commission’s jurisdiction (citations to the law and regulations are not necessary);
* Clearly identify each person, committee or group that is alleged to have committed a violation (called the respondent);
* Include any documentation supporting the allegations, if available; and
* Differentiate between statements based on the complainant’s (the person who files the complaint) personal knowledge and those based on information and belief. Statements not based on personal knowledge should identify the source of the information.

Essentially, the requirement to be assigned a MUR number by the FEC is providing the full information of the person, notarizing the complaint, and providing some claim that would fall under FEC jurisdiction.  Anyone who has ever dealt with FEC complaints knows they assign numbers and then routinely dismiss complaints for no violation or lack of any evidence after issuing an MUR number.

So let’s review.  The Chairman of the Lake County Republicans has filed a complaint against Michael Bond for not forming a campaign committee in a timely fashion, but nothing in the complaint addresses the $5,000 raised by the candidate that sets the 15 day clock.

Dutifully, reporters will cover this and treat it as serious.  That’s too bad because it’s a good story about a fool issuing a complaint to an overworked agency for purely political reasons and that complaint has no basis in the law.  Whether that is due to stupidity or malice is impossible to tell, but it’s an interesting story.  What’s most troubling is that Team America jumps on the story with no regard for the facts. It’s one thing to post a story because someone you know gives you a story that seems reasonable and then find out that some important elements are missing.  That happens pretty often.  However, compounding the error by continuing to push the story is what gives blogs a bad name.