For more than a decade, America’s campaign watchdog agency was a portrait of dysfunction. Divided equally between three Republicans and three Democrats, the Federal Election Commission deadlocked so often it became a political punchline as investigations languished, enforcement slowed and updated guidelines for the internet era stalled.

Now, the commission has suddenly come unstuck.

The Federal Election Commission has dismissed a complaint from Republicans that Google’s Gmail app aided Democratic candidates by sending GOP fundraising emails to spam at a far higher rate than Democratic solicitations. 

The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a campaign finance case concerning how campaigns can repay candidates’ loans, in a 6-3 decision that critics warn could make it easier to bribe political candidates.

Cruz sued the Federal Election Committee regarding a rule that limits how political campaigns can reimburse candidates for loans they make to their own campaign, allowing them to repay up to $250,000 in loans at any time, and more than that only if they’re repaid within 20 days post-election.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has been at war with campaign finance laws for more than a dozen years, stretching at least as far back as its decision in Citizens United v. FEC (2010). On Monday, the Court’s six Republican appointees escalated this war.

The Court’s decision in FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate is a boon to wealthy candidates. It strikes down an anti-bribery law that limited the amount of money candidates could raise after an election in order to repay loans they made to their own campaign.

The Supreme Court sided with Senator Ted Cruz in a 6-3 decision issued Monday morning in a case brought against him by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over how loans from candidates can be repaid following an election cycle.

The decision was authored by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett while Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent and was joined in the minority by Justices Breyer and Sotomayor.

The Federal Election Commission has fined Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for lying about funding a discredited dossier, which attempted to smear then-candidate Donald Trump, the Washington Examiner reported.

A dossier written by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele was circulated to the FBI and media outlets before the 2016 election. Its unproven assertions that Russia had embarrassing information about Trump and some of his campaign's advisers were meant to damage Trump.

Liberal mega-donor George Soros will contribute $125 million to his super PAC, which will make him one of the biggest donors to Democratic groups and candidates for the 2022 election cycle to date.

Soros’s group, Democracy PAC, launched in 2019 and contributed more than $80 million to Democratic groups and candidates leading up to the 2020 elections. It made the most recent announcement before the group’s spending is posted publicly next week after filing with the Federal Election Commission.

A "perfect storm" of procedural blockades prevented the investigation and sanctioning of alleged Trump campaign election law violations, regulators said this week.

Why it matters: Legitimate cases are being dismissed. And critics say the Federal Election Commission's inability to crack down on many bad actors has undercut the threat of enforcement, and turned campaign financing into the Wild West.

The Federal Election Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to recommend that Congress ban political campaigns from guiding donors by default into recurring contributions through prechecked boxes, a month after a New York Times investigation showed that former President Donald J. Trump’s political operation had steered huge numbers of unwitting supporters into repeated donations through that tactic.

Debbie Chacona oversees the division of the Federal Election Commission that serves as the first line of defense against illegal flows of cash in political campaigns. Its dozens of analysts sift through billions of dollars of reported contributions and expenditures, searching for any that violate the law. The work of Chacona, a civil servant, is guided by a strict ethics code and long-standing norms that employees avoid any public actions that might suggest partisan leanings.