Money Talks, Election Commission “Paralyzed”

Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ann M. Ravel and an agency that she says no longer has any hope of reining in abuses are the subject of a front page New York Times article by reporter Eric Lichblau.“The few rules that are left, people feel free to ignore,” says one of the Democratic commissioners, as Ravel calls the Commission “worse than dysfunctional.” The partisan divide is so total that the commissioners barely talk to each other, Lichblau writes, and with fundamental disagreement about the commission’s mandate and the commissioners deadlocked at 3-to-3, there is no virtually chance of rules being enforced. But one of the Republican commissioners maintains the agency is working just as Congress intended. They “set this place up to gridlock,” he says.