Federal Election Commission

Based on Wikipedia: Federal Election Commission

The Agency Designed to Fail

Here's a riddle: What do you call a police department where half the officers must be criminals? It sounds absurd, but that's essentially how Congress designed the agency tasked with keeping American elections clean.

The Federal Election Commission, or FEC, is the watchdog that guards the henhouse of political money. It's supposed to enforce campaign finance laws, shine light on who's funding our elections, and punish cheaters. But there's a catch built right into its DNA: the commission has six members, and by law, no more than three can belong to the same political party.

Any meaningful action requires four votes.

Do the math. That means at least one commissioner must vote against their own party's interests to enforce the law. In an age of fierce political tribalism, this happens about as often as you'd expect.

Birth of a Compromised Watchdog

The FEC emerged from the ashes of Watergate. In 1974, Americans were reeling from revelations that President Nixon's campaign had laundered money, run secret slush funds, and used cash payoffs to cover up crimes. Congress, in a rare moment of bipartisan shame, passed sweeping reforms to the Federal Election Campaign Act and created a new agency to enforce them.

But even in that moment of reform, Congress couldn't resist protecting itself. The original design let the House Speaker and Senate President Pro Tempore each appoint two commissioners, with only two chosen by the president. Congress wanted to keep control over its own regulators.

The Supreme Court wasn't having it. In 1976, in a case called Buckley versus Valeo, the justices ruled this arrangement unconstitutional. The commissioners were "Officers of the United States" under the Constitution's Appointments Clause, meaning only the president could nominate them. Congress had to rewrite the rules.

So they did, but they kept the poison pill: the three-and-three partisan split that virtually guarantees gridlock on any case that matters.

What the FEC Actually Does (When It Can)

On paper, the FEC has an impressive mandate. It tracks every dollar flowing into federal campaigns and makes that information public. Anyone who donates more than two hundred dollars to a presidential, Senate, or House campaign gets their name, address, employer, and job title recorded in a searchable database going back to 1980.

The commission investigates complaints, typically filed by rival campaigns, watchdog groups, or ordinary citizens who notice something fishy. It audits campaigns for compliance. It administers the public funding system for presidential elections, a program that used to matter before candidates discovered they could raise far more money privately.

The FEC can also issue advisory opinions, essentially telling campaigns whether a proposed action would be legal. This guidance function works reasonably well because it doesn't require punishing anyone.

But enforcement? That's where things fall apart.

The Deadlock Epidemic

For the first two decades of its existence, the FEC functioned tolerably well. Between 1996 and 2006, commissioners tied on only about two percent of enforcement matters. Then something changed.

By 2008 and 2009, deadlocks had spiked to thirteen percent. By 2014, nearly a quarter of votes ended in ties. By 2016, commissioners deadlocked on more than thirty percent of substantive votes.

What happened? American politics happened. As the parties polarized, so did the commissioners they appointed. Republican commissioners increasingly saw campaign finance regulations as unconstitutional restrictions on free speech. Democratic commissioners saw them as essential protections against corruption. Neither side would give ground.

The result, critics say, is an agency that has been captured by the very people it's supposed to regulate. Former commissioners from both parties have called it "toothless." The bipartisan structure that was supposed to ensure fairness instead guarantees impotence.

When Nobody's Home

Even worse than deadlock is complete dysfunction. The FEC needs four commissioners to have a quorum, the minimum number required to conduct business. Without a quorum, the agency can't vote on complaints, issue advisory opinions, or do much of anything except keep the lights on.

This has happened repeatedly. In 2008, under George W. Bush, the commission lost its quorum. Under Donald Trump's first term, it happened twice: from late August 2019 through most of 2020, with a brief respite in the middle.

During that stretch, the backlog grew catastrophic. By May 2020, there were 350 outstanding matters on the enforcement docket and 227 items waiting for action. Some cases exceeded the five-year statute of limitations and simply died. Potential violations that would have been investigated in normal times simply expired into the ether, unpunished and often unknown.

The pattern repeated in Trump's second term. On May 1, 2025, the FEC again became inoperative, down to just three commissioners.

The Firing of Ellen Weintraub

Ellen Weintraub is something of an institution at the FEC. First appointed in December 2002 through a recess appointment, then confirmed to a full term in 2003, she served as a Democratic commissioner for over two decades. She was chair in 2003, 2013, 2019, and 2025, an unusual feat made possible by a quirk in the rules: the chairmanship rotates annually, and commissioners can serve beyond their six-year terms until a replacement is confirmed.

On February 6, 2025, President Trump fired her.

Weintraub refused to accept the termination, arguing it was unlawful and "ultra vires," a Latin legal term meaning beyond the president's authority. The dispute cuts to a fundamental question about independent agencies: can a president fire commissioners who are supposed to be insulated from political pressure?

Former commissioner Ann Ravel offered a blunter interpretation of Trump's motives: "Trump wants to purposely leave the FEC without a quorum because of the very high number of complaints filed with the FEC about his improper financing."

The Stormy Daniels Test Case

Perhaps no case better illustrates the FEC's dysfunction than the investigation into payments to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign.

Just before the election, Trump's then-lawyer Michael Cohen paid the adult film actress $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump. Cohen later pleaded guilty in federal court to campaign finance violations, saying he made the payment at Trump's direction to influence the election.

If true, this would seem to be exactly the kind of violation the FEC was created to address. A payment made to help a candidate win an election, not disclosed to voters, potentially exceeding contribution limits.

On May 6, 2021, the FEC closed its inquiry. The vote was two to two, Democrats against Republicans, on whether to take further action. One Republican commissioner recused himself. The independent commissioner didn't vote. Case closed.

A similar pattern played out with Karen McDougal, another woman who alleged an affair with Trump. The National Enquirer's parent company paid her $150,000 for the rights to her story, then buried it, a practice known as "catch and kill." The FEC found the company violated election laws and imposed a fine of $187,500.

But when commissioners voted on whether to investigate Trump's role, they split three to three on party lines. Investigation over.

The Coming Frontier: Artificial Intelligence

As campaign tactics evolve, the FEC's paralysis extends to new frontiers. In June 2023, commissioners considered whether to create guidelines for campaign advertisements using content generated by artificial intelligence, things like deepfake videos or AI-generated voices impersonating candidates.

The vote failed three to three, with Republican commissioners arguing the agency lacked authority to regulate such advertisements and Democratic commissioners arguing regulation was urgently needed.

So as AI-generated political content proliferates, candidates and voters have no guidance from the FEC about what's allowed.

A Brief History of Commissioners

The FEC has seen dozens of commissioners come and go since 1975. Some served brief terms. Others, like Danny McDonald, served for nearly twenty-five years across multiple reappointments. Joan Aikens served from 1975 to 1998, spanning almost the entire period when the commission actually functioned.

The appointments process itself contributes to dysfunction. Commissioners serve six-year terms, but those terms are staggered and fixed to end on April 30 of certain years regardless of when someone was actually appointed. More importantly, commissioners can continue serving indefinitely after their terms expire until a replacement is confirmed.

This creates perverse incentives. A president might prefer to leave seats vacant rather than appoint commissioners who might rule against their interests. The confirmation process can drag on for years. And commissioners serving on expired terms have no particular reason to build consensus or compromise.

As of 2025, commissioners earn $158,500 per year, assuming the agency has enough members to actually conduct business.

What Would a Functioning FEC Look Like?

Reform proposals abound. Some suggest adding a seventh commissioner to break ties, though this would likely just shift the partisan battleground to who controls the tiebreaker. Others propose strengthening enforcement mechanisms or reducing the vote threshold for certain actions.

The fundamental problem may be that Congress designed an agency in its own image: divided, partisan, and ultimately unable to police itself. Campaign finance enforcement requires judging the conduct of the very politicians who appoint and confirm the judges.

In 1974, reformers believed they could create an institution strong enough to withstand political pressure. Fifty years later, the evidence suggests they failed. The FEC stumbles on, occasionally functional, frequently deadlocked, sometimes completely inoperative, a watchdog with its teeth carefully removed.

The Broader Context

The FEC doesn't exist in isolation. It's part of a broader ecosystem of election administration that includes the Election Assistance Commission, which handles voting systems and election administration, and various state-level agencies that enforce their own campaign finance laws.

Federal campaign finance law has evolved significantly since the FEC's creation. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, often called McCain-Feingold after its Senate sponsors, tried to close loopholes in soft money contributions. The Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United versus FEC opened new channels for political spending by corporations and unions, fundamentally reshaping the landscape the FEC must navigate.

Meanwhile, so-called dark money flows through organizations that don't have to disclose their donors, invisible to the FEC's transparency requirements. Shadow campaigns operate in legal gray zones. The rules grow more complex while the enforcement mechanism grows weaker.

A Small Victory

Not everything the FEC does ends in deadlock. In 2018, Liuba Grechen Shirley was running for Congress in New York while caring for two young children. She asked the FEC whether she could use campaign funds to pay for childcare during the hours she spent campaigning.

The commission said yes, unanimously. Grechen Shirley became the first woman in history to receive approval to spend campaign funds on childcare costs.

It was a small rule, affecting relatively little money, with no obvious partisan angle. Under those conditions, the FEC can still function. The problem is that the cases that matter most, the ones involving powerful politicians and large sums and potential corruption, rarely meet those conditions.

Looking Forward

American democracy depends on citizens believing their elections are fair. Campaign finance laws exist to prevent corruption, or at least its appearance. The FEC was supposed to be the guardian of that public trust.

Instead, it has become a symbol of Washington dysfunction, an agency that can agree only on the uncontroversial, that deadlocks on anything that matters, that periodically ceases to function entirely. Its critics span the ideological spectrum, from reformers who want aggressive enforcement to free speech advocates who want the agency abolished.

Perhaps the only thing everyone agrees on is that the current system isn't working. But agreeing on what to do about it would require the kind of bipartisan cooperation that has become increasingly rare in American politics.

The watchdog sleeps. The money flows. And every two years, Americans go to the polls with incomplete information about who's paying for the campaigns trying to win their votes.