The FEC and the Breakdown of the Rule of Law
via The Brennan Center for Justice
There is a serious rule of law problem in how rarely campaign finance laws are enforced at the federal level by the Federal Election Commission, the agency set up to regulate money in politics.
Philosopher Jeremy Waldron taught me about the rule of law at Columbia Law School. As a 1L student, I could see no point in this “waste” of my precious time. But the more I see how lawlessness works in the real world, the more grateful I am to Columbia for exploring this concept in such depth.
So what is the “rule of law” anyway? This is a matter of rich debate. But at the very least, the rule of law encompasses the idea that as President Theodore Roosevelt put it, no one is above or below the law. A U.S. President or his administration can be hauled into court for civil or criminal offenses; and any pauper still has the right to full due process.
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