CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE’S GAMBLE: RISK BREAKING LAWS — OR THE BANK

Nabilah Islam is 30 years old, saddled with student loan debt and, for the moment, a professional congressional candidate.

A Democratic political operative until last year running to represent Georgia’s competitive 7th District, Islam no longer enjoys employer-provided health insurance or, because of competing living costs, any health insurance at all.

So Islam on Monday asked the bipartisan Federal Election Commission to provide an official answer to her novel question: May she use congressional campaign funds to purchase health insurance for herself — without violating prohibitions on using campaign cash for personal expenses?

Islam won’t soon know: the FEC doesn’t have the minimum number of commissioners — four — to decide. It hasn’t since Sept. 1. President Donald Trump, who alone is empowered to nominate new FEC commissioners, has neither offered the U.S. Senate nominees to fill three vacancies on the six-seat commission nor replaced the three remaining commissioners who’ve overstayed their terms by a collective 30 years.