Brad Smith, blogging at the Center for Competive Politics, thinks that’s a good thing:

[I]t is clear that the three commissioners who voted not to appeal believe that the FEC’s regulations are, in fact, unconstitutional.  Commissioners may have an obligation to defend a federal statute in court, they have obligations as to enforcement of duly enacted regulations, but they have no obligation to defend those regulations once a federal court has unanimously found them to be unlawful.  The commissioners are, after all, free to amend the Commission’s own regulations.  The reality is that there is not a majority of the commission that thinks that these regulations, now struck down in EMILY’s List, are constitutional.  As such, it is absurd for the FEC to be trying to enforce them.  These regulations are not mandated by statute and the commissioners are acting within their power to reject them.

Our prior coverage of the Emily’s List decision is available here.

This post was written by Joshua Bolinger.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 4:50 pm and is filed under Constitutional Law, Court Cases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.