If you were a Congressman in the early 1970s, you were probably scared of the late Rep. Wayne Hays (D-Ohio). You definitely hated him. His dominance in Congress has had lasting effects on how elections are monitored today.
Two major court rulings in 2010 fundamentally changed the landscape of campaign finance law in the United States. The floodgates were opened to unprecedented levels of campaign donations, much of it untraceable.
Since its founding in 1974, the Federal Election Commission has long been regarded as an ineffective agency, garnering criticism as a “toothless tiger” or a “tightly leashed watchdog.”
Following the Watergate scandal, Congress introduced the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in an amendment to existing campaign finance regulations. An independent agency that would enforce campaign finance law, the FEC officially opened for business in April 1975.
In 1997, the Treasury and Government Appropriations Act mandated that FEC commissioners may serve a single six-year term, with no opportunity for reappointment. When a commissioner’s term expires, they may choose to continue serving in holdover status until they are replaced. Currently, three out of the six commissioners are in holdover status.
When transparency, regulation and accountability were mostly aspirational.
From the archives: Programs produced in affiliation with FRONTLINE examined campaign spending, Trump’s trade wars and an ongoing housing crisis that a federal program has yet to fix.
President Donald Trump had a specific immigration agenda when he entered the White House in 2017: Stem the flow of immigrants — both legal and undocumented.
Kenosha, WI helped give Donald Trump a slim margin of victory in 2016, a win that can be traced in part to the healthy majority who years ago supported the Kennedys versus racist former Alabama Gov. George Wallace.
Across the United States, state and local officials, frustrated by a lack of leadership in the White House and federal agencies, took steps on their own to prepare for the pandemic and protect their communities.
Two years after going live, TAP hits a major milestone.
Investigating Power is a history of breakthrough investigations that revealed news and changed the national narrative on many major topics since the 1950s, from war to health to civil rights.
An interactive timeline examines President Trump’s use of executive orders to restrict access to the U.S.
In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation’s streets.
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