The FEC is the primary agency responsible for interpreting and enforcing federal campaign finance law.
It is also one of the few federal agencies with evenly divided leadership:
no more than three of the FEC’s six commissioners can be from the same political party, and under current law, it takes four votes for the commission to act on any significant matter, including deciding to investigate alleged legal violations.
Over the last decade and a half, sharp partisan divisions among commissioners frequently left the agency paralyzed and unable to issue new regulations, provide advisory opinions to political actors seeking to understand their legal obligations, or meaningfully enforce the law.
Recently, the commission has bucked this trend to make some bipartisan progress on a few emerging issues.
Unfortunately, there almost certainly aren’t sufficient votes on the FEC to tackle bigger issues that are part of the ongoing legacy of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which has been the subject of previous rulemaking proposals.
And the commission now faces a new test in responding to the emergence of artificial intelligence, which has the potential to revolutionize political campaigns.
It already has a new rulemaking petition on this subject before it.
Of greatest immediate concern, however, is that even the imperfect rules the FEC does have on the books are seldom enforced.
Take the example of coordination between candidates and super PACs.
Due to Citizens United, outside groups like super PACs may raise and spend unlimited money on elections so long as they act independently from candidates or political parties.
But in the years since that decision, groups have sprung up that work hand-in-glove with political candidates to the point where they are essentially shadow campaigns, resulting in a steady stream of complaints filed with the FEC.
The agency almost never pursues these allegations. In the almost 14 years since Citizens United, it has only initiated a handful of investigations into potential violations of the coordination ban, none of which resulted in any fines.
The same goes for dark money from undisclosed sources, which totaled more than $1 billion in the 2020 election cycle and $615 million in the 2022 midterms.
The proliferation of dark money is partly a function of gaps in the law — including regulatory gaps the commission could address.
But it also results from the fact that many groups that should be required to register as PACs (which have to disclose their donors) simply do not do so.
This, too, has resulted in a stream of complaints on which the commission seldom acts.
The FEC’s efforts to prevent foreign spending in U.S. elections are lacking as well.
While political contributions by foreign actors are banned, the FEC relies on campaigns and PACs to self-certify that they confirmed the U.S. citizenship of donors with foreign addresses.
As the commission’s Office of Inspector General has pointed out, this approach “poses a national security risk and provides insufficient oversight of possible illegal foreign donations.”
In total, the agency has only initiated about a dozen investigations into allegations of foreign spending in the past decade, and when it does occasionally pursue violations, the slow pace and low penalties tend to minimize any deterrence value.
For instance, the FEC recently fined a pro-Trump super PAC $25,000 for soliciting a $2 million donation from a fictitious Chinese businessman in late 2016 — almost six years after the fact, for misconduct during a campaign cycle in which the PAC reported spending more than $23 million.
Overall, the FEC levied about the same dollar amount in penalties last year as it did in 2004, despite overall spending on federal elections having more than tripled.
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A ruling against affirmative action in admissions has renewed scrutiny over special treatment for children of alumni. USC and Stanford are potential targets.
Battle over legacy and donor admissions preferences to heat up. USC, Stanford could take hit (www.latimes.com)
A ruling against affirmative action in admissions has renewed scrutiny over special treatment for children of alumni. USC and Stanford are potential targets.