On Wednesday, the Committee on House Administration held the first formal oversight hearing of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in over a decade. Chairman Bryan Steil explained in his opening remarks:

Today marks the first time in twelve years the Federal Election Commission, or the FEC, has come before the Committee on House Administration.

As Chairman of this Committee, I’m focused on building Americans’ confidence in our elections by making it easy to vote and hard to cheat. . .

Democrats have spent the last two years criticizing even the slightest concerns expressed by conservatives about the integrity of U.S. elections. Then why did the Biden Administration nominate Dara Lindenbaum to fill a seat on the Federal Election Commission (FEC)? As the Washington Examiner reports, Lindenbaum signed on to allegations that lacked credibility about the outcome of the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election:

In a lawsuit she filed in November 2018 on behalf of Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams's nonprofit group, she signed her name to several bad-faith allegations, many of which had already been debunked at that time. But one of these allegations truly stands out for its brazen fearmongering and lack of credible evidence: the charge that faulty or rigged voting machines were actually switching voters' choices when they went to vote in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election.

Last week, the Federal Election Commission fined the 2016 Clinton Campaign and the Democrat National Committee for inaccurate disclosures relating to the Steele Dossier. The New York Post reported:

The Federal Election Commission has fined both Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee for lying about how they spent money used to fund the now-debunked Steele dossier on former President Donald Trump.

Earlier today, 9 former FEC Commissioners (including RNLA Board of Governors members Lee Goodman, Matthew Petersen, and Michael Toner) wrote to congressional leadership to express their concerns with Titles IV and VI of Division B of this Congress' version of the "For the People Act" (H.R. 1 and S. 1 respectively). These sections of the nearly 800-page bill dealing with the FEC directly and campaign finance would, as the former Commissioners put it, "complicate the law and hinder grassroots political speech and activism, with little or no benefit to public accountability, transparency, understanding of public policy, or reduction in corruption."

Early voting has officially begun in Georgia to determine who will represent the state in the U.S. Senate. However, concerns still linger from the 2020 general election over the security of Georgia's election system. These concerns are part of a broader pattern of uneasiness about elections across the country. According to a recent Morning Consult survey, 40.6% of the respondents expressed distrust in the U.S. election system. A recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey reported that only 24% of Republicans thought the results of the 2020 election were accurate.

For the first time since 2017, all of the seats on the Federal Election Commission are filled. Allen Dickerson, Sean Cooksey, and Shana Broussard were confirmed by the Senate earlier today. Dickerson and Cooksey are Republicans, while Broussard is a Democrat. Some may find it odd for a Republican President to appoint a Democrat, but no more than 3 of the 6 commissioners can be from the same political party. The votes for the Republican nominees were largely along party lines.

On November 18th, the Senate Rules Committee met to consider the nominations of Shana M. Broussard, Sean J. Cooksey, and Allen Dickerson to the Federal Election Commission. Confirming the nominees is especially important, since the FEC lost a shortly-held quorum earlier this year when Commissioner Caroline Hunter resigned. 

Earlier today, the RNLA issued a press release thanking Caroline Hunter for her service as a Federal Election Commissioner. Ms. Hunter, a George W. Bush-appointee, resigned earlier this month after 12 years of service.

On May 29th, businessman Shaun McCutcheon (of McCutcheon v. FEC fame) filed a request with the Federal Election Commission to issue an advisory opinion on whether he can transfer the $50,000 that he personally contributed to his campaign committee, McCutcheon for Freedom, to the Libertarian National Committee without violating campaign finance law. McCutcheon was a candidate for the Libertarian nomination for President during the current election cycle.

The Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) thanks Federal Election Commission (FEC) Commissioner Matthew Petersen for his years of public service on the FEC. Commissioner Petersen announced today that he would leave the FEC effective August 31.