The Tampa Bay area is getting a special visit next week from the nation’s top elections official. Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ann Ravel will be speaking at Stetson University College of Law on Tuesday.
The timing is key because municipal elections are being held across the county, including in St. Pete where one race, in particular, has yielded two separate complaints filed with the state’s Division of Elections.
Ravel isn’t expected to directly address that issue though students do have an opportunity to ask individual questions.
Instead, Ravel plans to speak with law students about her experiences regulating money in politics both as chairwoman of the FEC and during her service in California with the Fair Political Practices Commission.
As FEC chair, Ravel is the front-line regulator of campaign finance in elections for both the presidency and Congress. The position has been overseeing those elections since the Watergate scandal involving Richard Nixon.
Ravel’s talk, “A Legal Career Focused on Democracy,” highlights the role of elections in democracy.
As head of California’s Fair Political Practices Commission Ravel was integral in creating the States’ Unified Network creating a web-based center for sharing information on campaign finance.
Stetson Law professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an expert on campaign finance reform, is organizing the event. The talk begins at noon in Stetson’s Great Hall at the Gulfport campus.
