It's easy to see why some good government advocates are upset that President Obama has tapped labor lawyer John J. Sullivan to serve on the Federal Election Commission.

Labor unions fought to block the landmark McCain-Feingold legislation that banned soft money, joining in an unsuccessful Supreme Court challenge in 2003. More recently the Service Employees International Union, where Sullivan is associate general counsel, has urged the FEC to relax its enforcement both of disclosure rules and of limits on coordination between candidates and outside groups.

Sullivan's selection bodes poorly for Obama's pledges to fix the dysfunctional FEC, complained J. Gerald Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center.

"The gusto with which Mr. Sullivan has bashed important elements of McCain-Feingold and repeatedly taken radical deregulatory positions does not inspire confidence that he will have different views if confirmed to the Commission," Hebert warned in a statement.

But Sullivan's critics would do well to remember another labor lawyer whose nomination prompted similar dire warnings back in 2005. President Bush's nomination of Robert Lenhard also caused a stir among reform advocates, who objected at that time that Lenhard, too, had challenged the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold as associate general counsel of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

As it turns out, Lenhard went on to help preside over what in hindsight looks like one of the FEC's more productive recent phases. Not that Lenhard's every decision was lauded by good government watchdogs. But compared with today's FEC -- which in recent months has bogged down repeatedly in partisan deadlocks and public disputes -- Lenhard's tenure looks like a virtual model of efficiency.

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