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The Federal Election Commission (or FEC) is an independent regulatory agency created in 1974 by the United States Congress to administer and enforce campaign finance legislation in the United States. It was created in a provision of the 1974 amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act. It describes its duties as "to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections."
Membership The Commission is made up of six members, who are appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate. Each member serves a six-year term, and two seats are subject to appointment every two years. By law, no more than three Commissioners can be members of the same political party, and at least four votes are required for any official Commission action. This structure was created to encourage nonpartisan decisions and to discourage rulings which would be harmful to both major parties. The Chairmanship of the Commission rotates among the members each year, with no member serving as Chairman more than once during his or her term. The current composition of the FEC includes Republican commissioners Michael Toner (Chairman), David Mason and Hans von Spakovsky, and Democratic commissioners Robert Lenhard (Vice Chairman), Stephen Walther and Ellen Weintraub. Criticism Critics of the FEC, such as major campaign finance reform supporters like Common Cause and Democracy 21, have criticized this feature of the FEC, claiming that it renders the agency "toothless." These critics claim that most FEC penalties for violating election law come well after the actual election in which they were committed. Defenders of the Agency point out, however, that this problem may be endemic to the system. To complete steps necessary to resolve a complaint - including time for defendants to respond to the complaint, time to investigate and engage in legal analysis, and finally, where warranted, prosecution - necessarily takes far longer than the comparatively brief period of a political campaign. At the same time, other critics, such as former FEC Chairman Bradley A. Smith and Stephen M. Hoersting, Executive Director of the Center for Competitive Politics, criticize the FEC for pursuing overly aggressive enforcement theories, and for infringing on First Amendment rights of free speech.• Official duties As part of its official duties, the FEC publishes reports filed by Senate, House of Representatives and Presidential campaigns that list how much each campaign has raised and spent, and a list of all donors over $200, along with each donor's home address, employer and job title. This list is fully searchable, and is mirrored at other websites such as fecinfo.com. This database also goes back to 1980, making it a useful database of past employment histories and home addresses of any campaign donors. Campaigns are legally prohibited from using these data to solicit new individual donor (and sometimes there are false names inserted as a measure to prevent this), however they may use this information to solict Political Action Committees. While these exhaustive campaign finance resources are available to everyone, they are sorely underutilized by the public. This is due, in part, to the lack of any effort by the FEC to educate the public on either the availability or value of this information. Rather, the FEC aims the bulk of its public materials at the candidates, campaigns and committees which it regulates. In addition, the commissioners tend to act as an arm of this "regulated community" when issuing rulings and writing regulations, paying more attention to its interests than to those of the voting public whom as public officials they presumably serve. This is due to the fact that FEC commissioners traditionally are selected from the ranks of this regulated community and will return to it after completing their single six year term. Commissioners See also | ||||||||
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