The Federal Election Commission

Why and How It Skews the Truth

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) was established in 1975 as the enforcement arm for the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). By law, it is comprised of six president-appointed, Senate-approved members, no more than three of whom can be from the same political party. Official committee actions must be supported by four or more members. Each member is assigned a six year term, and two of the members are up for re-election every two years.

The FECA was well-intentioned. It aimed to finally bring campaign finances under control and to establish a system of limited public funding of political campaigns. Four years after its inception, Congress established the FEC to enforce those goals and other Federal election regulations.

To those ends, there is little or no evidence that the FEC has failed. But as a source for objective analayses of the benefits and drawbacks of the electoral college, the current state of participatory democracy in America (as manifested by voter turnout), and the success of the FECA in reigning in campaign finances, one could not hope to find a less objective source.

Despite the FEC's claim that it "was created to encourage nonpartisan decisions" in the realm of the federal elections system, the commission is entrenched in partisanship and elitism. Until President Clinton's 1997 appointment of Darryl Wold, all of FEC commissioners had served continuous terms at least since the mid-1980s. Today, all but one commissioner worked in Washington, D.C. for either Republicans or Democrats prior to appointment to the FEC.

While the FEC may arrive at technically non-partisan decisions, they are only non-partisan in the context of America's two-party system. Supporting policies that would erode their power base is clearly not in any of the members' best interest. It is in their best interest to overstate the success of current campaign finance laws and voter registration efforts.

There is little or no point to advocate the dismantling of the FEC. Its propaganda does little harm, as long as it is acknowledged that, like many other governmental organizations, it has a vested interest in the preservation of the status-quo. But, if the FEC, as a government agency, is treated as a necessarily reputable source for opinions and data concerning the federal election system, its pervasive propaganda can be misleading and harmful.