New FEC Chair: ‘The Mission of This Agency Cannot Be Neglected’

Federal Election Commissioner Shana Broussard is in a tough spot.

She became chair of the commission last week, but lacks the four-person quorum needed to fulfill some of the agency’s most important functions. At the same time, President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget is recommending steep cuts to the FEC’s funding in 2026, threatening additional strains to an agency that its members say is already underfunded.

In an interview with C&E this week, Broussard – one of two Democrats on the commission – acknowledged the challenges that lie ahead for the FEC. But she also insisted that the agency is in a far-better position than it was four years ago during her first stint as the commission’s chair, and expressed hope that it could soon get back to its rulemaking responsibilities. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

C&E: Back in 2021, the first time you became chair, the FEC had just regained a quorum after a pretty long pause. There was a lot on the table. Tell me what that was like and what that experience meant to you.

Shana Broussard: It seems so long ago and it was just four years – going on five years – ago. So, in 2020 I was nominated and confirmed to the commission and then, thanks to my colleagues, was immediately voted in to be chair of the agency. In hindsight, it makes sense. I was one of the newer commissioners that had been in the building for 15 years prior to that, so I was familiar with the workings of the agency. I knew all the staff and the people and had a little bit of an advantage because I knew what was on the agenda and what needed to be tackled, not only from being in the building, but also because I was counsel to Commissioner [Steven] Walther at the time. 

Unlike now, we had 450-plus cases that were waiting for the commissioners because there had been such a long lapse of a quorum. It took a concerted effort by everybody, but a lot of late nights by me personally, going through every single matter to assess how we should prioritize things. And it was really important that we prioritize matters because we have a five-year statute of limitations and things had started running close to that. So we had to make some very hard decisions about getting matters on the agenda.
 
We had to make quick decisions, tough decisions so that it could be more manageable for the agency staff, as well as for the commissioners themselves. It took a year to reduce the backlog, but by the end of the year, we had eliminated 60 percent of it. And all credit goes to the team working together, the commissioners and some really great people that were on my staff as well.

C&E: When you formally became chair last week, you noted that there were 161 pending enforcement matters as of April. Do you have any sense of what that looks like now? And is there a point where you would start to get concerned that this might be too much for the commission to deal with?

Broussard: I don’t have the exact numbers for you now. We put out our quarterly reports on July 15, and we will be considering it at the August executive session. We also publish the quarterly status of enforcement matters on the agency’s website. It’s redacted, but that basic number will be available for everyone. And I’m also happy to make sure, on a rolling basis, that the public is aware of what the numbers are as we continue into this. It was at 161 at the end of the last quarterly report. I suspect, in fairness, you could probably add 25 to 30 matters to that. It might be more. I’m really proud of the staff for continuing to produce a body of work. But I have personally told them, it is not your job to keep anything down there because you don’t want to burden us. It’s not a burden. It’s my job and it is our responsibility to work together to be able to get through all of this.
 
C&E: We don’t really have a good sense of when we might see a nomination for the FEC. Do you have any sense of when there might be some movement on these vacancies? How are you thinking about these vacancies? Um and um are you confident that you know we might have a quorum back by the end of the year?

Broussard: I don’t have any specific information. I’m not privy to anything that may be considered by the White House right now. What I can say is that every commissioner that is currently here is eager to have a quorum restored.
 
I am privy – we all are – that there have been reports that it’s been pinned down to certain individuals. I can’t confirm or deny it, because I don’t have that information. But  like I said, I’m eager for us to have a full quorum. I’m steadily going through my cases. And of course, we’re cognizant that any new colleagues are going to need a little time to be able to to get to a comfort level on this, but we’re going to work it out together.

C&E: Looking past not having a quorum right now, what would you like to accomplish during your tenure as chair?

Broussard: So let me go back to my first time as chair. The priority was to eliminate this enforcement backlog, because it was so extensive. And this year, that will be a priority, because we don’t want to get anywhere near where we were before. But I’d like for us to be able to return to some of the rulemaking. In the last couple of years, I’ve been on the Regulations Committee and we have been able to bring the commission back into that full place where we’re actually putting forth regulations again. It was in ’23, ’24, we were able to expand candidate salaries. We were also able to finally resolve a 13-year rulemaking effort in the internet disclaimer. That was one that took a lot of effort to finally get something accomplished that wasn’t done in the previous 10 years before.
 
I’m hopeful that we can return back to rulemaking. We have quite a few [proposals] that have already been published online. The contributor information is one. There is also the administrative fines. That is another matter. And then some of the personal things that I would like to pursue – I have an interest in looking to see if there’s something that we can do in the joint fundraising committee rulemaking, so that we can actually give a little bit more guidance and, maybe in some way, lessen the burden of the reporting that is on all the parties involved in that.

C&E: I believe it was I think it was Commissioner [Trey] Trainor who said back in April when you were elected that the FEC staff is working with very limited resources. What kind of resources does the FEC need to more sufficiently do this work? What would your message be for members of Congress, who are ultimately responsible for making those decisions?

Broussard: Thank you for the opportunity to answer that question. We don’t have enough resources and essentially it comes down to what the budget is. What all three of us agree on is that additional funds in our budget will help with our IT needs. This is to provide the services that we already provide everybody. We are here as an agency to support transparency and to fairly administer and enforce the campaign finance rules. But one of the things that people count on us the most for is that website that you go to that tells you the up-to-date contributions and spending that every committee files. The additional funds can make sure that we can keep it to the quality level that it is and make it even better.
 
And that’s one of the things that we’re concerned about. Without additional funds, we don’t want to be in a place where the public is not getting the full information that they deserve to know about what’s happening in the building. We want to still be able to provide the trainings that we provide. We provide twice-a-year trainings that are not at cost, that can help out a lot of smaller committees that don’t have the same resources as the larger political parties or better-funded campaigns and committees do. We continue to offer those. But all of the information that we provide is designed so that we can encourage voluntary compliance. 

That is the first and foremost thing that I want to stress. We’re not here out trying to “get you.” What we want is to give you enough information so that you can voluntarily comply with the [Federal Election Campaign Act] and the commission’s regulations. And one of the things that we want to do is to keep making our staff available to answer the on-the-go calls that we receive. [The Reports Analysis Division] receives thousands of calls from over 16,000 political committees, and we try to respond to those in a timely manner. But we need to make sure that we have the resources to be able to tackle our IT concerns, to keep our cloud systems up to date, to make sure that we’re practicing IT safety and security so that we don’t have any issues or any break in the system. We want to continue to present the outward-facing materials that everybody relies on this agency for…We turn over millions of pages [of disclosures] within 24 hours. We need the funding to be able to continue to do that.

C&E: It feels like we’re having a moment as a country where there’s a lot of apathy – if not outright opposition – to campaign regulation. There was an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week essentially making the argument that campaign regulation is flat-out unconstitutional. Why in your view is it important to preserve these laws and to make new rules? How are you thinking about the future of campaign finance regulation? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about it?

Broussard: So in the simplest way, we have to think of campaign finance as a benefit for the entire country, not just those political committees that are involved in it. The mission of this agency cannot be neglected, and it is to promote transparency and how funds are used in campaigns. I believe that an informed public is really the essence of democracy; an informed public that has the awareness of how money is being spent in political campaigns.
 
I never want to discourage free speech. What you put in your ad or your communication is your choice. I want the individuals that are looking at it to be aware of who is behind the communications. Transparency is the main thing that I’m here for. And I think that when individuals are aware of who is behind communications, who is responsible, who has put so much of their money forth on this, you can make your own decision as to whether you want to take the veracity of the information. So I think there’s a balancing between the free speech principles that we all respect and we all rely on and that so many people say is a negative part of the campaign finance regime. But I also want to remind you there’s a part in there where we can have transparency. And the Supreme Court itself has said that disclaimers show the light. The disclaimers are a way for the individual to be informed about what’s happening. 

To your question of whether I’m going to be a Debbie Downer about campaign finance or if I’m going to be positive about it, I think I have the responsibility as the chair of this agency right now to remain positive about the good things that are happening with this agency; the good things that are happening with the 200-plus people that we have here. 

As campaign finance has grown exponentially, doubling every election cycle, you’re still receiving the fullness of the information that’s there. We are still keeping ourselves available. Just until April, we were still responding to advisory opinions. We are encouraged by the opportunity to consider new issues. We’re encouraged by the opportunity to make sure that we’re reminding office holders about the ability to protect themselves with the campaign security expansion that we recently did. We are in a stage where the security of the people that serve us, the security of the people that run for office, is paramount right now. That’s obvious by what recently happened in Minnesota. It’s obvious by what happened to the president during the campaign. These are just very sad events that are going along and coinciding with a time in this country where we’re trying to understand how democracy and transparency and free speech all work together.