FEC commissioners generally agreed they should be more transparent. | JAY WESTCOTT/POLITICO FEC can't explain secrecy

The Federal Election Committee isn’t living up to its own standards of transparency, members of the Committee on House Administration told the six FEC commissioners today in a rare oversight hearing.

The committee members then ordered the FEC to make public a long-undisclosed enforcement manual and penalty procedures or face a congressional subpoena.


“Your unwillingness to release these documents contradicts and ultimately hinders your agency’s core mission … It’s unacceptable and it needs to change,” Subcommittee on Elections Chairman Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) scolded. “How can we trust an agency to enforce disclosure when it lacks disclosure?”

Said Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.): “We let murderers know what they’re facing … shouldn’t we let prospective members of Congress know what they’re facing?”

Commissioners generally agreed that they can do better to become more transparent, but struggled to explain why some of their procedures today lack the kind of transparency committee members demanded.

“Information about our enforcement process should be made public,” FEC Commissioner Cynthia Bauerly (D) told the committee, vowing to address the committee’s concerns. “There are some disagreements over what that penalty guideline should look like.”

“I don’t have a good answer as to why this stuff is secret,” Commissioner Donald McGahn II (R) said.

“This would be a good opportunity for us to review,” Vice Chairwoman Caroline Hunter (R) said.

Harper, along with other members of the committee, also panned the FEC commissioners for a variety of other perceived problems, from regularly deadlocking 3-3 on key votes before the commission to frequently asking political committees for information they may not by law be required to provide.

Committee members also questioned why the FEC hasn’t adequately created rules and regulations that complement the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizen United v. Federal Election Commission, which gave corporations, unions and special interests greater ability to directly engage in political elections.

The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Charlie Gonzalez (D-Texas), asked the six commissioners whether they believed the FEC is today sufficiently transparent with information since the Citizens United decision.

The three Republicans said yes, the three Democrats said no.

FEC Commissioner Steven Walther (D), for his part, told the committee: “We’ve fallen down on what we could have done regarding regulations,”

Several government reform groups used the hearing as an opportunity to call on President Barack Obama to replace the six FEC commissioners.

Public Citizen’s government affairs lobbyist Craig Homan declared the FEC “broken.” And in written testimony to the elections subcommittee, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 called for a new federal elections agency altogether.

Such an agency, the two campaign reform groups recommended, should be independent of the executive branch, headed by a single administrator and enjoy strengthened enforcement powers, among others.

The committee also quizzed commissioners on how, going forward, it intends to grapple with rapidly expanding political advertising on social media sites.

The commission isn’t in a position to make individual rules for Facebook, Twitter and Google, Bauerly replied, but “we do want to make sure we are keeping up with innovations” and said the commission would endeavor to do so.