FEC: An Agency Tasked with Regulating First Amendment Activity

January 1, 2018  •  By IFS Staff  •    •  

The Federal Election Commission is the independent agency charged with enforcing federal campaign finance law and enacting campaign finance regulations. The FEC was created after the Nixon Administration’s Justice Department pursued criminal campaign finance charges against the President’s critics. In light of that effort, Congress correctly rejected the idea of letting a future president effectively control a government agency tasked…

Is the Supreme Court about to give state and local political parties a boost?

May 10, 2017   •  By Brad Smith   •  , , ,

By Bradley A. Smith As part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform" of 2002, virtually everything these local parties do was brought into the web ...

Brad Smith: Prevent the reckless restructuring of the FEC

May 1, 2017   •  By Brad Smith   •  ,

Imagine you are a Republican. Would you agree to let the rules of political campaigns be written by a partisan committee selected by Barack ...

Members of Congress Renew Proposal to Kill Bipartisan FEC

April 14, 2017   •  By Luke Wachob   •  ,

Replacing the FEC with a five-member body would bring to the federal government problems that have long existed at the state level. It would ...

Ravel’s Support for Ending PACs Exposes Her Long-Term Policy Goals

April 12, 2017   •  By Joe Albanese   •  , ,

When Ann Ravel resigned from her post at the Federal Election Commission earlier this year, she made it clear that her activism would continue ...

‘Deep FEC’ Goes After White House Counsel Don McGahn

March 9, 2017   •  By Brad Smith   •  ,

The hot political buzz phrase in the early Trump administration is “Deep State.” The phrase was originally coined to refer to the government’s military ...

Former FEC Commissioner Ravel Admits Her “Dysfunction” Narrative is Unfounded

March 2, 2017   •  By Joe Albanese   •  ,

Ann Ravel, formerly of the FEC, spent her first day after resigning with fellow progressives at the Center for American Progress. During an event ...

Former FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel’s ugly exit

March 2, 2017   •  By Paul Jossey   •  ,

Federal Election Commissioner (FEC) Ann Ravel’s rocky tenure ended this week on March 1. She resigned with a 25-page screed that painted the campaign ...

Soon-to-be former Democratic FEC chair tried to politicize the bipartisan commission

March 1, 2017   •  By Brad Smith   •  ,

Federal Election Commissioner Ann Ravel announced this week her intent to resign on March 1, two months before the expiration of her term. By ...

Resigning FEC Commissioner Ravel Never Stopped Her Partisan Grandstanding

February 23, 2017   •  By Joe Albanese   •  ,

FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel announced over Presidents’ Day Weekend that she would resign from her post with only a few months left in her ...

Obama was no one’s hero when it came to money in politics

February 8, 2017   •  By Luke Wachob   •  , ,

For eight years, left-leaning groups like Common Cause, Public Citizen, and the Brennan Center for Justice pressured President Obama to do something, anything about ...

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