Michael E. Toner
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Michael E. Toner is currently a commissioner for the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the regulatory body that oversees campaign finance for United States federal elections.
Toner was nominated to the FEC by President George W. Bush on March 4, 2002, confirmed by the Senate on March 18, 2002 and appointed on March 29, 2002.
Prior to being appointed to the FEC, he was Chief Counsel of the Republican National Committee. Mr. Toner joined the RNC in 2001 after serving as general counsel of the Bush-Cheney Transition Team in Washington, D.C. and general counsel of the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign in Austin, Texas.
Before joining the Bush campaign in Austin, Toner was Deputy Counsel at the RNC from 1997 to 1999. Prior to his tenure at the RNC, Mr. Toner served as Counsel to the Dole/Kemp Presidential Campaign in 1996.
Toner was an associate attorney at Wiley, Rein, & Fielding in Washington, D.C. from 1992 to 1996. His work there included advising political committees and corporate clients on federal and state election law compliance. He was also involved in a number of First and Fourteenth Amendment appellate litigation matters, including two cases that were successful in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Toner has written widely on campaign finance matters, including in the Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, The Hill, and Roll Call, and was a contributing author in the book Divided States of America: The Slash and Burn Politics of the 2004 Presidential Election (edited by Professor Larry J. Sabato, University of Virginia Center for Politics). He has also appeared as a guest commentator on Fox News Channel and C-SPAN. In addition, Toner has served as an adjunct professor of law at the William and Mary Law School and as a lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia.
Toner received a J.D. cum laude from Cornell Law School in 1992, an M.A. in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University in 1989, and a B.A. with distinction from the University of Virginia in 1986. He is a member of the District of Columbia and Virginia bars, as well as the United States Supreme Court bar, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia and the Eastern District of Virginia.
