Trump fired the FEC chair, leaving campaign finance without a watchdog

Congress created the Federal Election Commission in 1975, one year after the Watergate scandal exposed how Nixon's campaign secretly funneled millions in illegal corporate contributions to sabotage political opponents. The FEC's founding purpose was simple: no more campaign money without public disclosure and enforceable limits. The 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act gave the FEC power to investigate violations, levy civil fines, and issue binding legal guidance to campaigns.

Trump sent a letter on January 31, 2025, telling Democratic FEC Chair EWEllen Weintraub she was 'hereby removed' from the commission.

Weintraub refused to accept the firing as legal, stating the Federal Election Campaign Act gives no president the authority to dismiss commissioners.

Republican former FEC Chair TPTrevor Potter agreed, calling the move a violation of the law, the separation of powers doctrine, and Supreme Court precedent. The FEC website removed Weintraub's name as a current member by March 2025, while the legal dispute over whether the firing was valid continued in court.

Republican Commissioner SCSean Cooksey had already resigned in January 2025 before Trump's inauguration. Then Republican Commissioner ADAllen Dickerson — whose term expired April 30, 2025 — chose to leave on that date rather than continue in a holdover capacity.

His departure letter to Trump, dated April 23, 2025, formally announced his exit. That left the FEC with three commissioners: Republican TTTrey Trainor and Democrats SBShana Broussard and DLDara Lindenbaum — one short of the four needed to act.

The FEC needs four of its six commissioners to vote before it can do almost anything consequential. Four votes are required to open a new investigation, approve a settlement, authorize staff to defend the agency in court, issue advisory opinions to campaigns seeking legal guidance, adopt new regulations, or hold a formal meeting on the record. Without that threshold, staff can still process and publish campaign finance reports — but no one can be held accountable for violating them.

When quorum collapsed in May 2025, the FEC reported 388 open enforcement matters frozen in place. Among those, 200 reports were awaiting commissioner deliberation, and 115 of the pending complaints involved allegations that would expire under the five-year statute of limitations within 18 months — meaning some violations will simply age out of legal reach. The Brennan Center for Justice called this a commission left as a watchdog with no bark or bite.

The 2024 federal elections set a record for dark money spending: groups that don't disclose their donors spent more than $1 billion influencing federal races, according to OpenSecrets

Dark money has grown from less than $5 million in 2006 to more than $1 billion in the 2024 cycle

Citizens United v FEC (2010) opened the door by allowing corporations and nonprofits to spend unlimited money on elections, premised on an assumption that such spending would be transparent — but the FEC has repeatedly failed to enforce disclosure rules even when it had a quorum.

This is the fourth quorum collapse in the FEC's 50-year history. The first lasted six months in 2008.

Two more occurred during Trump's first term, in 2019 and 2020, with only a one-month gap between them. What makes 2025 different is that the two commissioners who remain are both Democrats — an unprecedented situation that leaves no Republican voice at the table and gives Trump's allies grounds to claim the remaining body is partisan.

The Campaign Legal Center and other watchdog groups have responded to FEC inaction by filing direct suits in federal court using FECA's citizen-suit provision, which allows private parties to seek enforcement when the FEC fails to act. This workaround reaches only some violations and requires expensive litigation, meaning the gap left by a non-functional FEC falls hardest on smaller campaigns and ordinary citizens who can't afford lawyers.