The Campaign Legal Center’s Paul Ryan recently charged that the FEC stooped “to a new low” because the agency failed to hound a mysterious robocaller who allegedly spoke to voters without a disclaimer and perhaps failed to report the spending in an uncompetitive Republican Party primary. Ryan based these charges on Commissioner Ellen Weintraub’s four page legal analysis of the case.

We don’t know the reasons why the GOP Commissioners did not vote to pursue the matter. It could be that they simply decided it wasn’t worth it.

While I will not argue over whether the call was express advocacy or not, let’s put this into perspective: the person who wrote the script for the robocall almost certainly did not receive guidance from sophisticated election lawyers. If they did, the call’s script would have been rewritten so as to avoid charges from the likes of Ryan and Weintraub that the call fell under the umbrella of regulated speech.

The evidence from the FEC General Counsel’s report was pretty conclusive that the mystery robocaller wasn’t a candidate. It certainly was not the incumbent, as he is the one criticized in the call.

Further, there is no evidence that more than one robocall was made without a disclaimer.

So let’s review: potentially, one robocall was made. The candidate supposedly targeted for defeat by the call won with over 70% of the vote in a three candidate field. About 81,000 votes were cast, and it’s highly doubtful that many calls were made. The total spent on the calls was almost certainly under $5,000, and it is possible the call cost only a few hundred dollars. Robocalls can be made at very little cost, and, if you have a computer with the proper software, a person can deliver a message at nearly no cost at all.

If the FEC decided to pursue an investigation in this matter, it is highly likely the Commission would have spent way more money investigating and closing this case than was spent on the mystery robocall itself. In the end, the FEC may well have caught a small fish and made his or her life a legal hell for a number of months based on the caller’s audacity in speaking out to criticize an incumbent.

This case illustrates a real weakness at the FEC; very few people at the Agency have any real-world campaign experience, something they have in common with many of those advocating for ever more intrusive speech regulations.

All in all, this appears to be making a mountain out of a molehill. The FEC has to deploy its limited resources in a sensible way. Despite all of Ryan and Weintraub’s complaining, the FEC may well have merely decided to pursue more important matters.