Dem. leader Reid concedes on FEC posts

WASHINGTON, April 30 (UPI) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would fast-track GOP nominees to the Federal Elections Commission in exchange for Democratic seats.

The FEC, the body that oversees campaign finance legislation, is two members shy of having enough members for a quorum on its six-person panel.

The committee is therefore unable to make a ruling on ethics legislation and decision on whether the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, can back out of the federal matching funds program, the Congressional daily The Hill said Wednesday.

Reid said in a letter to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten he wants to keep Democratic commissioner Ellen Weintraub at the FEC beyond her term limit, but would seek another Democratic candidate for the slot vacated by Robert Lenhard, the former Chairman of the FEC. Steven Walther would remain under consideration to fill the third Democratic seat.

Reid said he would fast-track the review of two new GOP candidates if the White House withdrew the nomination of Hans Von Sikorsky. Democrats oppose the Von Sikorsky nomination because as a Justice Department official he allegedly restricted an investigation into suppressing the voting rights of American Indians.

The third GOP seat would be retained by acting FEC commissioner David Mason.

"There is no need to settle for the fiction of a commission when we readily have the ability to constitute a true six-member commission with the candidates we have at hand," Reid said.

FEC members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but each party names its own nominees.