Roll Call reports on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s selection of Mike Shields to head up the party’s “independent expenditure” (“IE”) unit this election cycle.  If you’re not familiar with the history of party coordination and campaign finance law (and especially if you are), it may strike you as odd that political parties have to put some of their own workers behind a “firewall” to separate them from their own nominees.  The Schumer-Van Hollen framework doesn’t mention removing the limits on party coordinated expenditures, but it was a popular approach urged upon Congress during many of the recent hearings on Citizens United.