New CLC Report Examines FEC’s Role in Letting Big Money Dominate Elections

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People sit behind a large desk with microphone in front of them and a large logo behind at the Federal Election Commission.
Ellen Weintraub (left), Allen Dickerson (right) and other commissioners meet during an open meeting at the Federal Election Commission on July, 14, 2022. Photo by Casey Atkins/Campaign Legal Center

2024 marked yet another year of enormous election spending by wealthy individuals and corporations to support their preferred candidates.

But more than ever before, this costly election cycle demonstrated just how many opportunities deep-pocketed individuals have to exert influence and control over who serves in government, and whom government serves.  

Whether it’s billionaires like Elon Musk spending record-breaking amounts on the election and receiving influential government positions, or wealthy special interests hiding their political spending through “dark money” channels, a lack of regulation and oversight has created a wealth of opportunities for access, influence, and corruption, while leaving everyday Americans without any meaningful voice in the political process.  

The current state of our federal campaign finance system is a direct consequence of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) refusing to recognize or enforce guardrails on money in politics.  

Charged with the vitally important mission of interpreting and enforcing federal campaign finance laws, the FEC has failed to bring transparency and accountability to our elections for over a decade.  

For much of that time, routine deadlocks among the FEC’s six commissioners allowed countless major violations of federal law to go uninvestigated and to escape accountability.  

More recently, however, the years of inaction due to deadlocks have given way to a more problematic trend: a proactive dismantling of the campaign finance laws the agency is supposed to uphold.

In the past two years, a bloc of commissioners has repeatedly ruled to limit regulations on election spending, while declining to investigate clear violations of the law.

From Dysfunctional to Destructive: The Federal Election Commission’s Disastrous New Trend Opening the Floodgates to Big Money in Our Elections” is a new report from Campaign Legal Center (CLC) that examines the most consequential of the FEC’s recent deregulatory actions.  

CLC’s one-of-a-kind report shines a light on how many of the FEC’s recent decisions have undermined democracy in three major ways:  

  • Allowing for greater coordination between outside groups funded by wealthy special interests — like super PACs — and candidates’ campaigns.    
  • Allowing federal candidates to use money that is not subject to federal source or amount restrictions to finance their election campaigns.  
  • Allowing wealthy special interests and political advertisers to evade disclosure when spending money to influence federal elections.

In addition to explaining the key trends emerging from this period of the FEC’s work, CLC advocates for solutions that return the FEC to its original mission of enforcing critical campaign finance laws that make elections more transparent and ensure candidates and elected officials are accountable to the people.  

These recommendations include: the creation of a nonpartisan federal advisory panel of campaign finance experts to propose potential commissioners to serve on the FEC; and providing the FEC’s nonpartisan Office of General Counsel more autonomy to investigate apparent violations of law.  

With the recently announced resignation of Commissioner Sean Cooksey, Congress has the opportunity to ensure that new FEC commissioners actually believe in and support the campaign finance laws the FEC was created to implement and enforce.

Read CLC’s report: “From Dysfunctional to Destructive: The Federal Election Commission’s Disastrous New Trend Opening the Floodgates to Big Money in Our Elections.” 

Maha is a Communications Associate for Campaign Finance & Ethics at CLC.
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