President Bush has nominated a new nominee for the Federal Election Commission (FEC), as The Hill describes, "to jump-start negotiations with Senate Democrats." To replace Hans von Spakovsky Bush nominated Matthew Petersen, currently a Republican staffer on the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. Meanwhile, after the Senate Rules Committee was unable to get a quorum on Wed. May 21 to vote on whether to approve three new FEC commissioners, the Committee successfully did so the following day. Hopefully these nominations will move to the Senate floor for confirmation soon. After the committee's vote, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) issued comments in a press release stating; "This vote means the FEC is one step closer to restoring a working quorum. This vote comes not a moment too soon. It is unconscionable that in the middle of a presidential election year, with campaign committees spending millions of dollars, that we don't have our federal election watchdog in place."