Empire Building?

John Fund has an interesting piece on some of the obscure minutiae of running elections - this one, one that could slip a lot of back-door regulation into elections. It's gaining steam in Congress:

With the EAC's mandate ending in October it's time lawmakers hold a debate on how it can be restructured. One option would be to make its members appointed by leaders of Congress from both parties instead of by the president, which would remove any implication that the commission had rule-making authority. Another idea would let state and local election officials elect the commission's members and turn it into a body explicitly concerned with helping states improve election procedures rather than issuing edicts.

What is clear is that the currently constituted EAC carries with it a potential for partisan abuse. Even though current law requires the commission have an equal number of Democratic and Republican commission members, it could still tilt in a clear partisan direction if an unscrupulous president decided to stack it with recess appointments just before an election. "Democrats should think of a Richard Nixon with that kind of power, and Republicans might imagine a Hillary Clinton," warns a Democratic secretary of state. Our elections are too important to on the one hand, ignore the mistakes our local officials can make. or on the other have a federal body micromanage the process from Washington.

And watch, as you go forward, for the nastiest regulations on your freedoms to come from the most outwardly innocuous sources.