Holman: Obama Cannot Ignore the FEC Any Longer

This is getting ridiculous. After April, all but one of the six commissioners on the Federal Election Commission will be sitting with expired terms. Half the commission had their terms expire two years ago. Yet, there they sit — voting in an unprecedented number of 3-to-3 partisan deadlocks, preventing the elections agency from making decisions, offering advice or even enforcing the law.

The Federal Election Commission is broken. What should alarm us is that this is the agency that is supposed to monitor our elections and disclose who is funding which campaigns. Sadly, the FEC is barely fulfilling its mission — and the agency is closing its eyes just as we are entering the 2012 election cycle, which is likely to see spending hit more than $3 billion in the onslaught to buy the White House, fueled by secretive and unlimited corporate cash.

The single greatest reason the FEC is now unable to do its job is the ideological dogma of some of its members.