The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, challenging his executive authority.
The lawsuit argues that Trump’s executive order, “Ensuring Accountability For All Agencies,” threatens the independence of the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
“As applied to the Commission, Executive Order 14215 would eliminate FECA’s requirement that the executive branch’s legal interpretations of FECA’s provisions reflect the bipartisan consensus of an expert multimember board and replace that bipartisan consensus with the judgment of a single partisan political figure—the President of the United States,” the filing alleges, claiming that the “abrupt departure from the statutory scheme threatens significant harm to the Democratic Party’s three national political committees, Plaintiffs Democratic National Committee (‘DNC’), DSCC, and DCCC.”
It further claims that the DNC, DSCC, and the DCCC’s “ability to solicit rulemakings and advisory opinions and to file or defend against complaints will be severely impaired if those requests are to be resolved under the binding legal interpretations of a political opponent instead of a bipartisan commission of experts.”
“The extinction of the FEC’s independence—and replacement with the President’s decree—severely harms Plaintiffs by placing the head of the opposing political party in charge of interpreting campaign finance law for the executive branch,” the lawsuit argues.
Trump’s February 18 executive order asserts that “in order to improve the administration of the executive branch and to increase regulatory officials’ accountability to the American people, it shall be the policy of the executive branch to ensure Presidential supervision and control of the entire executive branch.”
