What is the Federal Election Commission?

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States government responsible for administering and enforcing the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), the primary federal statute governing the financing of federal elections. Congress created the FEC through the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974 (Pub. L. 93-443), signed into law on October 15, 1974, by President Gerald Ford. The impetus was the campaign finance abuses exposed during the Watergate investigation, including unreported cash contributions and illegal corporate donations to President Nixon's 1972 re-election committee.

The FEC is governed by six commissioners appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Federal law (52 U.S.C. Section 30106) requires that no more than three commissioners be from the same political party, which means the FEC is structurally designed for bipartisan agreement: an enforcement action or rulemaking generally requires four votes, and a 3-3 tie means no action. The chair rotates annually between the two parties. In Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), the Supreme Court struck down the original FEC appointment mechanism, under which Congress had appointed four of the six commissioners -- a violation of the Constitution's Appointments Clause, which reserves the appointment of principal officers to the President. Congress revised the statute through the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1976 (Pub. L. 94-283) to require that the President appoint all six commissioners.

The FEC performs four core functions. First, it administers and enforces FECA -- including contribution limits to candidate committees and party committees, the prohibition on contributions from foreign nationals, the ban on contributions from federal contractors, and the rules governing coordination between campaigns and outside groups such as super PACs. Second, it operates the public disclosure system: all campaign finance reports are available to the public at fec.gov, which is the authoritative database of who is funding which candidates and how campaigns are spending their money. Third, it administers the Presidential Public Funding Program, which provides matching funds to qualifying primary candidates and general-election grants to major-party nominees who accept spending limits; since Barack Obama declined the general-election grant in 2008, every subsequent major-party nominee has also opted out, choosing to raise and spend private money without the program's caps. Fourth, it issues advisory opinions -- binding FEC guidance on whether a specific planned activity complies with FECA -- including the landmark Advisory Opinion 2010-11 (July 22, 2010), which confirmed the legal structure for super PACs after Citizens United v. FEC (2010).

For the 2028 presidential election, any candidate who raises or spends more than $5,000 must register a principal campaign committee with the FEC and file regular financial reports. All contributions above $200 and all expenditures above $200 must be disclosed. Super PACs that support 2028 presidential candidates must also register with the FEC and file regular reports; all of their spending is publicly searchable in real time at fec.gov. The FEC enforces the prohibition on coordination between campaigns and super PACs -- if a super PAC coordinates its spending with a campaign, those expenditures are treated as direct contributions subject to FECA limits. Every dollar raised and spent in the 2028 presidential race above the reporting thresholds will flow through the public disclosure system the FEC administers.