Federal Election Commissioner Trey Trainor shouldn’t be campaigning for a politician with business before the commission. And if he does, he should recuse himself from that case.
Trainor was in the news last week for a social media post featuring a Ted Cruz yard sign.
Cruz and Trainor share mutual support. Cruz backed Trainor’s nomination in 2020, calling him “an individual of the utmost character and experience.”
Trainor is a political appointee, having come to his post under former President Donald Trump, as are all federal election commissioners. There’s no divorcing politics from election judges. But there are some jobs that should prevent their holders from openly campaigning for partisan candidates and causes. News reporter is one. Election commissioner is another.
Trainor’s mistake is compounded by the fact that the FEC may rule on a $630,000 elections complaint against Cruz. As The Dallas Morning News Washington correspondent Joseph Morton reported last month, a super PAC focused on Cruz’s reelection has received hundreds of thousands of dollars tied to advertising revenue from the senator’s podcast.
That’s not the first Cruz case the FEC has faced. Last year, commissioners, including Trainor, “found reason to believe that Senator Ted Cruz and his campaign committee, Ted Cruz for Senate, converted campaign funds to personal use by purchasing advertisements to promote Cruz’s book, One Vote Away.” But the commission took no action after Cruz announced he had directed the book’s publisher to donate all royalties to charity.
We don’t know yet if the financial arrangement with the podcast broke any rules. The Campaign Legal Center has asked for a Senate Ethics Committee investigation.
We do know that Trainor’s action was entirely legal. FEC rules against campaigning were changed in 2011. There’s nothing criminal about a yard sign, and Trainor should face no official discipline.
But in an era when voter confidence in election integrity is shaky, this was an unforced error. Trainor should refrain from such mistakes in future. And when the podcast matter comes before the commission, he should recuse himself.
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