Former FEC Chair Bradley Smith Announces
Return To Capital Law School Faculty This Fall

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Thursday, June 16, 2005–Bradley A. Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, has announced he will return to the faculty at Capital University Law School following his resignation from the commission at the end of his term.

Smith announced his intention to resign in a letter to President Bush on June 13. His resignation will be effective Aug. 21, and he will return to Columbus in time for fall classes. Smith has been on leave from the Law School since being nominated to the commission by President Clinton on Feb. 9, 2000, and confirmed by the Senate on May 24 of that year for a term that expired on April 30, 2005. He served as chairman in 2004.

By law, members of the Federal Election Commission nominated after 1997 may serve one six-year term, with the terms of two Commissioners expiring every two years, and may continue to serve after the expiration of their terms until a replacement is appointed.

Reflecting on his tenure at the FEC, Smith emphasized the important strides the commission made in recent years, particularly in its efforts to enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act. Specifically, he noted such accomplishments as speeding the enforcement process, improving due process for people and groups being investigated and obtaining meaningful civil penalties when violations of the law occur.

Smith, however, also expressed concern about the effect of heavy regulation on grassroots political activity, noting that the commission’s regulations are some 400 pages long. As examples, he cited cases of fines being levied against husbands for contributing too much to wives, and citizens being investigated for homemade yard signs.

“Professor Smith ably served the FEC with distinction and honor during a period of unprecedented transition in how our nation’s campaigns are waged and financed,” said U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce, a graduate of Capital Law School. “Through it all, Professor Smith remained an independent freethinker and will be remembered historically for ferociously protecting our nation’s most fundamentally important right to political free speech.”

Of his decision to return to Capital, Smith said, “I’m pleased with the progress we made during my tenure at the FEC. It has been an honor to serve the government in this capacity, but I always have intended to return to academia at the end of my term. Capital has been very supportive of my work in this field. I love teaching, and I am looking forward to returning to it.”

“Bradley Smith’s return to the Law School faculty allows our students the opportunity to learn from one of the nation’s leading experts in election law,” said Law School Dean Jack Guttenberg. “We are delighted to welcome back a scholar and a teacher of this caliber.”

The student body named Smith Professor of the Year in 1999-2000. He also was recognized by the Student Bar Association for his work to improve student and faculty relations.

Smith is the author of “Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform,” published by Princeton University Press in 2001 and the Yale Law Journal article, “Faulty Assumptions and Undemocratic Consequences of Campaign Finance Reform,” for which he won the Theodore Simson Prize for Outstanding Faculty Scholarship in 1996.

Smith has been published in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, National Review and others. He has appeared on “Hardball,” “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” Fox News Channel, Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” and “The O’Reilly Factor,” CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” ABC News, C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” and other political and news shows.

Harvard Law School honored Smith with the Traphagen Distinguished Alumnus award in 2000. He also is the recipient of the 2000 Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor Award from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and received an honorary degree from Augustana College in 2004.

Smith sits on the advisory board to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Election Law; the Election Law Journal’s editorial board; and the board of advisers for the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

At Capital, Smith will teach administrative law, jurisprudence and election law and continue writing in those areas.