In Case of Emergency, Hold Free and Fair* Elections

*Last night, Donald Trump asserted unprecedented control over the Federal Election Commission

The mayhem boils down to this: If we want to reverse MAGA policies and pass laws that improve peoples’ lives, someone else has to control Congress and the White House.

For that to happen, we need to win elections in 2026 and 2028.¹

We don’t how far Donald Trump will go to stay in power by preventing those elections from being free and fair, but we know he’s going to do something because he already has.

Last Night, Trump Moved to Take Control of the Federal Election Commission

The Federal Election Commission is the agency that discloses who’s funding candidates, and it prevents illegal dark money and corporate contributions from flowing to campaigns.

Without a functional FEC, we won’t know who’s paying for the political ads we see on TV, and there’ll be nothing to stop super PACs or foreign actors from illegally supporting candidates.

The FEC is an “independent agency,” like the SEC or the Federal Reserve. Independent agencies aren’t part of the President’s cabinet, and the President has limited ability to direct their actions or fire their leadership.

They’re independent because their work is so important that it should be a step removed from politics and Presidential control. (This makes sense with transparency in elections—we don’t want one party or the other placing its thumb on the scale in a way that could influence the way people vote.)

All that changed last night with a Trump Executive Order bringing the FEC and other independent agencies under Presidential control and reshaping the power structure of the federal government.

If Trump’s order survives legal challenges, it means the FEC won’t be able to propose—not pass, but even propose—new campaign finance rules without the White House reviewing them first.

Even worse: Attorney General Bondi and President Trump are now the FEC’s lawyers. The Executive Order prohibits the FEC from taking any legal position or interpreting campaign finance laws in a way that “that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion.”

What does this mean? Let’s say the law isn’t totally clear about whether political ads on Twitter/X have to include a “Paid for by ____” disclaimer like political ads on TV. FEC lawyers (experts in this area of law) decide the best legal interpretation is that, yes, candidates have to put the “Paid for by” box at the bottom of Twitter/X ads, and they prepare to issue that rule. Bondi and Trump disagree, and their legal opinion is final: Voters who see political ads on Twitter/X won’t know who paid for them.

Other sections of the Order go even further, but it’s not entirely clear if they apply to the FEC. If they do, the White House could re-apportion the FEC’s budget “as necessary and appropriate, to advance the President’s policies and priorities” and could install a “liaison” (a/k/a babysitter) at the FEC to make sure the agency follows all the new rules.

Last Week, Trump Also Dismantled the Agency That Protects Our Elections from Cyber Attacks

But wait, there’s more. Our elections are a complex ecosystem of voters, voting laws, campaign finance rules, election workers, software systems, and more.

Like any ecosystem, they need protection from outside dangers.

One agency that protects elections is the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the Department of Homeland Security. CISA doesn’t only work on elections; it’s responsible for cybersecurity and infrastructure protection across the government.

When it comes to elections, CISA mostly supports state and local election officials by giving them resources to withstand cyberattacks, physical attacks, and other threats against voter databases, their office computer networks, etc. State and local election officials from both parties have praised CISA for providing this support.

On Friday, the Trump Administration forced CISA to stop all election security work pending an “investigation.” Trump’s DHS also cut off all funding to the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a nonprofit organization that helps state and local officials share information and best practices about keeping our elections safe and secure.

Most reporting suggests the outcome of the investigation will be the permanent firing of most or all CISA federal workers.

In case you were wondering, the plan for gutting CISA and halting its election protection work appears on page 155 of Project 2025.

1. And in essential state elections like the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court this April and the Virginia and New Jersey state legislatures this fall.