On Thursday night, the Democratic chair of the Federal Election Commission, the bipartisan agency that regulates campaign finance in federal elections, announced that President Trump had summarily fired her. This comes at a time when the FEC is set to decide multiple complaints involving Trump and his top-donor-turned-right-hand-man, the billionaire Elon Musk, who is currently rampaging through the federal government trying to dissolve agencies and fire key staff with Trump’s blessing. The firing is a dangerous and unprecedented maneuver that opens the door to a partisan takeover of the watchdog agency that both sides of the aisle have long agreed needs to be independent and free from political weaponization.
Ellen Weintraub, the commissioner who was removed, is the latest in a growing list of officials at independent federal agencies Trump has attempted to oust (full disclosure: I worked for her for several years about a decade ago). Trump’s attempt to fire her is a major break with the FEC’s history. No president has ever summarily removed a commissioner from the opposing party without cause and without consulting with that party’s congressional leaders on a successor.
This latest move by the president smashes through longstanding safeguards. It’s too early to tell the full scale of the impact of Trump’s actions. Weintraub was set to help decide dozens of complaints related to the 2024 elections, including not only complaints against Trump and Musk, who spent nearly $300 million to help the president get elected, but also complaints Trump himself filed against Kamala Harris and various media outlets such as The Washington Post and CBS News. How those matters are resolved could depend on who fills her seat and the seat of a GOP commissioner who recently resigned.
In her post on X announcing the president’s attempt to fire her, Weintraub noted that it was illegal. She has a strong argument given the FEC’s structure and Congress’s clear intent that the commission be independent and insulated from partisan weaponization. At least one other Democratic commissioner at an independent agency who Trump purported to fire has already sued.
Legality aside, firing Weintraub without going through the process of choosing a successor with input from Congress looks like an attempt to subvert the FEC at a critical moment. It could potentially lay the foundation to weaponize the agency against the president’s enemies while stifling any effort to pursue his friends and allies. This is only the latest action to strip away longstanding guardrails — others include firing other heads of independent agencies, the apparently illegal firing of at least 17 agency inspectors general (independent officials who monitor for waste, fraud, and abuse), and the appointment of extreme partisans to critical law enforcement roles at the Department of Justice and other agencies.
The FEC was established in the 1970s in response to revelations of corporate campaign finance violations and shakedowns, many connected to the Watergate scandal that took down President Richard Nixon. Its bipartisan structure, which allows no more than three of its six commissioners to be from one party, reflects the sensitivity of its mission to oversee campaign finance rules and political speech and Congress’s fear that the agency could be weaponized for partisan ends.
That structure has its own problems. Because its takes at least four commissioners to approve any action of significance, the agency often finds itself gridlocked and unable to enforce the law even when its warranted, which has significantly exacerbated the harmful of effects of Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United that eliminated important campaign finance safeguards. But every serious proposal to reform the agency has taken into account the need to protect the agency from a partisan takeover.
The current moment we are living through is defined by an extraordinary concentration of private wealth and unchecked political power in the same hands. When the time comes, a great many changes will be needed to ensure that our political system works for all Americans. One key reform will be to fix the FEC to both make it more effective and strengthen checks and balances that keep it insulated from the worst impulses of partisan politics.
