The head of the Federal Election Commission, Ann Ravel, said Sunday that her organization is unable to enforce laws against those who abuse campaign finance laws in the 2016 presidential election.
"The likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim," Chairwoman Ravel told The New York Times. "I never want to give up, but I'm not under any illusions."
She added: "People think the FEC is dysfunctional. It's worse than dysfunctional."
The problem stems from deeply rooted ideological differences among the six FEC commissioners, resulting in perpetual 3-to-3 ties along party lines on important votes. Commissioners can't agree on the organization's purpose or which laws to enforce, Ravel told the Times. Some of them are barely on speaking terms and negotiations rarely occur, the Times said.
"What's really going on is that the Republican commissioners don't want to enforce the law, except in the most obvious cases," Ravel said.
"The rules aren't being followed, and that's destructive to the political process," she added.
Lee Goodman, a Republican FEC commissioner, told the Times that the FEC is operating as Congress intended.
"Congress set this place up to gridlock," he said. "This agency is functioning as Congress. The democracy isn't collapsing around us."
A record $10 billion is expected to be spent in the 2016 fight for the White House.
On the Republican side, business billionaires and routine political megadonors David and Charles Koch have already said they will spend $889 million in the run-up to the 2016 elections, reported POLITICO. Democratic counterpart and billionaire George Soros is expected to also contribute large amounts of money.
Estimates of the total expenditures for 2016 fall between $7.5 billion and $8 billion, up from a record $6.3 billion in 2012, according to the Times.
Ravel said she plans to focus on disseminating information to the public rather than continue to futilely fight the major violations, resigning to the fact that "there is not going to be any real enforcement" in the upcoming election.
