Aikens Elected Chairman of Federal Election Commission

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WASHINGTON-Members of the Federal Election Commission have elected Joan D. Aikens as Chairman and Scott Thomas as Vice Chairman for 1998.

In December of each year, Commissioners elect a Chairman and Vice Chairman to serve for the upcoming calendar year. The Federal Election Campaign Act requires that the Chairman and Vice Chairman be of different political parties, and states that a member may serve as Chairman only once during a six-year term of office.

Commissioner Aikens, a Republican, replaces outgoing Chairman John Warren McGarry, who will resume his duties as a Commissioner.

Joan D. Aikens is the only sitting Commissioner to have served on the original panel of the FEC. Aikens was appointed in 1975 to a one-year term by President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate James Eastland, upon the recommendation of Senator Hugh Scott (R-PA), Minority Leader of the Senate. Following reconstitution of the Commission as a result of the Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo, Aikens was nominated by President Ford to a five-year term. She was confirmed by the Senate on May 18, 1976, and sworn into office by the President in a White House Rose Garden ceremony on May 21, 1976. Chairman-elect Aikens has served an additional three terms.

Prior to her first appointment, Chairman-elect Aikens was vice president of a Pennsylvania public relations firm. In addition, she served two terms as president of the Pennsylvania Council of Republican Women from 1972 to 1974; was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Federation of Republican Women; and served as alternate Delegate-At-Large to the 1972 Republican National Convention. A precinct committeewoman for 15 years, Aikens was, at the time of her original appointment, a member of the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee.

Vice Chairman-elect Thomas, a Democrat and native of Wyoming, was originally nominated by President Reagan on September 26, 1986, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on October 3, 1986, to a term that expired on April 30, 1991. Thomas was nominated to his second term on the Commission by President Bush on November 21, 1991. That term expired April 30, 1997. He has been renominated to a third term by President Clinton.

Prior to his appointment, Mr. Thomas served as Executive Assistant to FEC Commissioner Thomas E. Harris. He previously worked as an attorney and later as an Assistant General Counsel for Enforcement in the FEC''''s Office of General Counsel.

Created in 1975, the Federal Election Commission is the first independent federal agency established to enforce limitations and prohibitions on contributions, require candidates and committees to make public disclosure of their financial activities, and to administer the public financing program for Presidential elections.