The Federal Election Commission: Enforcement Process and Selected Issues for Congress

Summary

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is responsible for civil enforcement of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and other campaign finance statutes. Enforcement, one of the FEC’s principal functions, is perhaps the most controversial thing the agency does. Enforcement matters not only for encouraging compliance with law and regulation, but also for what it represents about the state of campaign finance policy overall. Some agency critics argue that modest fines, protracted processes, and deadlocked commission votes demonstrate that the FEC cannot effectively enforce campaign finance law. Others contend that Congress designed the FEC, which includes six commissioners who typically represent the two major political parties, to be deliberate and driven by consensus so that enforcement would not be politicized.

Enforcement has drawn attention inside and outside the agency. In recent years, commissioners have sparred at open meetings and in the media about whether the agency’s enforcement activities are inadequate or overzealous. The commission has struggled to staff some senior enforcement positions. Through oversight hearings, recent Congresses have monitored the FEC’s enforcement activities and, in some cases, criticized the transparency surrounding those processes. Congress occasionally has considered legislation to restructure the agency, particularly to change the number of commissioners, thereby reducing possibilities for deadlocked votes. H.R. 2931 in the 114th Congress is the latest such proposal.

This report provides Congress with a resource for understanding the FEC’s enforcement process and context for why enforcement is consequential. Enforcement represents broader debates about what the FEC does and what it should do, and what federal campaign finance policy is and should be. The FEC can determine how to prioritize enforcement activities and can manage its response to ongoing campaign finance policy disagreements. The agency has less or no control over other aspects of its environment, such as the enforcement process mandated in FECA. CRS Report R44318, The Federal Election Commission: Overview and Selected Issues for Congress, by R. Sam Garrett provides an overview of the FEC generally, including attention to organizational and administrative matters that are related to but distinct from the enforcement topics discussed here.

This report will be updated occasionally as events warrant.