Weeks before Election Day, the nation's campaign finance regulator can't enforce the law

In July, Reps. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, and Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, had a request for the Federal Election Commission: help make sure artificial intelligence chatbots do not feed voters false information about the 2026 midterm elections. 

The lawmakers, writing to the FEC as well as the Justice and Homeland Security departments, urged the agencies to coordinate on "AI-driven threats to election integrity" and to press AI companies on their safeguards. Their concerns come as a quarter of likely voters use AI tools daily and at least 38% have gotten information about candidates or voting from AI search summaries, according to a September survey released by the American Association of Political Consultants Foundation.

But later that month, FEC Commissioner Shana Broussard, a Democrat, wrote back with a blunt answer: the agency couldn't help. With only two of its six commissioner seats filled, the FEC "cannot proceed," she wrote, according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Broussard signed the letter as an individual commissioner. Without a quorum — the four members needed out of a total of six — she could not under federal law even speak for the agency. 

With Election Day just four weeks away, the exchange offers a window into how little the FEC can do as campaigns enter their final stretch. Without a quorum, agency staffers are limited to collecting and publishing campaign finance reports, answering questions from candidates about the law and fielding new complaints.

But the agency charged with policing how campaigns raise and spend money can't open investigations, issue fines, write rules or give candidates formal legal guidance. It hasn't been able to fulfill any of these duties since May 2025.

Since then, the FEC has not voted to resolve a single enforcement case or approved a dollar in new civil penalties, both of which require four commissioners. In the 12 months before that, it closed 180 cases and imposed about $1 million in civil penalties, according to agency records.

Meanwhile, the FEC's backlog of enforcement cases has doubled in a year, from 154 to 307, agency data show. (The FEC declined to comment for this story.)

Lawler and Gottheimer were not alone: the FEC's two remaining commissioners gave similar answers to a number of other lawmakers who asked it to investigate or issue guidance this year, the documents show.

One was Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, who asked the FEC in April whether she could use campaign funds to pay for childcare while she voted and attended committee hearings. The Capitol's daycare center only allows parents to pay for full-time care, she said. 

"Please advise on what I can do," she wrote in an email. An FEC official replied the next day that the commission could not issue advisory opinions until a quorum is restored. 

Luna said in an interview that she reached out to the White House to convey the importance of the FEC regaining a quorum, so questions like hers can be answered.

"Until the FEC meets, we're going to be operating in a gray area, which is why we need them to get a quorum to get a yes or no," Luna told CBS News. "Obviously, we don't want to get in trouble."

For those less worried about getting in trouble, the standstill has had the opposite effect, said Adav Noti, a former top lawyer for the FEC. The agency rarely acts quickly on complaints even with a full commission, he said, but the perception that anything goes has led to "more boundary-pushing than we would otherwise see."

Noti is now executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit group that seeks to strengthen campaign finance enforcement. Last month, it filed a complaint alleging President Trump illegally controls MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC that supports Republican candidates. 

The complaint cited Mr. Trump's remarks in September from the Oval Office that MAGA Inc.'s war chest is "my money that I control." And, this week, the president said MAGA Inc. funds would begin to pay for Trump-focused TV ads that his administration has been running, after public scrutiny over them being funded by taxpayers.

Unlike candidates, super PACs like MAGA Inc. can raise unlimited sums from donors, but federal law bars officeholders from controlling them or directing how that money is spent.

"Since there is just absolutely no enforcement mechanism right now, there's sort of blanket impunity for lawbreaking," Noti said. (A spokesperson for MAGA Inc. denied any impropriety and said in a statement that it complies with the law.)

Conservatives are frustrated, too. "It is very disconcerting that the FEC is incapable of carrying out any enforcement actions," said Paul Kamenar, a lawyer at the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative nonprofit. Earlier this year, the group accused Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, of illegally using campaign money to pay a psychiatrist. That complaint is also stalled. (Ocasio-Cortez's office and campaign did not respond to requests for comment.)

"We are hobbled"

The Federal Election Commission began to unravel as Mr. Trump returned to the White House. Sean Cooksey, a Republican commissioner, resigned in January 2025 to join the White House as a top lawyer for Vice President JD Vance. 

Weeks later, Mr. Trump removed Democratic FEC Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, who had served on the commission since 2002 and claimed the firing was illegal. Mr. Trump has asserted sweeping power to remove officials at independent agencies like the FEC, which Congress set up to operate at arm's length from the White House.

By the end of April, Republican Commissioner Allen Dickerson had resigned, leaving the FEC one member short of a quorum. And in October of last year, Republican Trey Trainor stepped down too, leaving only two commissioners, both Democrats. For the first time since it was created in 1974 after the Watergate scandal, the FEC had no members from one of the two major parties.

"Other people report that we're hobbled, and I hate to agree with it, but we are hobbled," Broussard said at the time. Mr. Trump nominated two Republicans to the commission in February. But nearly eight months later, the Senate has not held a hearing on either nominee.

The paralysis has left lawmakers in both parties without answers.

Rep. Mike Levin, a California Democrat, asked the FEC earlier this year to investigate allegations that Hungary's government funneled money to the Conservative Political Action Conference. Without four commissioners, Broussard replied, complaints "cannot proceed through the enforcement process." In June, Broussard and Democratic Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum gave Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, the same answer on a separate request.

Requests for guidance fared no better. When Rep. Mike Thompson, a California Democrat, wrote to the FEC this year to see if it would consider guidance on whether trading on prediction markets like Kalshi by candidates and PACs could count as a contribution or expenditure that must be reported under campaign finance law, Broussard replied that the FEC "is currently unable to commence rulemakings or to issue advisory opinions."

Thompson said in a statement to CBS News that such markets "can be easily manipulated by wealthy special interests" and that Congress and the FEC "should be tackling this emerging issue now."

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, was sent a similar answer. 

Last year, her chief counsel asked the FEC whether campaign money could be used for defense lawyers "if the senator is sued for something that happens in the course of her official employment," emails show.

A spokesperson for Slotkin said the inquiry was a question about how campaign funds could interact with Senate-sanctioned liability insurance, and that no lawsuit was anticipated.

Record spending

The lack of a quorum is colliding with the most expensive election on record.

Political ad spending is projected to reach $11.6 billion this cycle, up by $400 million from 2024 even though that cycle included an expensive presidential contest, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

Much of it is hard to trace. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been routed through political groups that do not disclose their donors, including pop-up super PACs that form and spend late in races, CBS News has reported.

Candidates and their allies are still filing FEC complaints against each other, even though the agency cannot act on them. In Texas, Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico's campaign accused Republican Ken Paxton of illegally spending dark money; the groups involved say they follow the law. Conservative critics have accused independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn in Nebraska of misusing PAC and campaign money, which his campaign called politically motivated.

With no commission to issue guidance, campaigns and spenders are left to decide for themselves what the law allows, said Craig Holman, Public Citizen's lobbyist on ethics and campaign finance rules.

"We've got no one that can judge the merits of what's going on, enforce the law and provide guidance to candidates and political committees that seriously want it," Holman said. "So everyone knows you can do whatever you want this time around."