Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

29. Federal Election Commission · Notable · Needs Congress

Enact legislation ending or limiting FEC commissioner holdover service

Not started

865 29. Federal Election Commission

“One of the most obvious changes that is needed is to end the current practice of allowing commissioners to remain as serving commissioners long after their term has expired, defying the clear intent of Congress in specifying that a commissioner can only serve a single term of six years. … The President should prioritize nominations to the FEC once commissioners reach the end of their terms and should be assisted by legislative language either eliminating or limiting overstays to a reasonable period of time to permit the vetting, nomination, and confirmation of successors.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    No bill amending the FEC's holdover provision (52 U.S.C. 30106(a)(2)(B)) was introduced in the 119th Congress. The practice ended in fact, by attrition and by executive action rather than by legislation: the President purported to remove Ellen Weintraub, who had served since 2002 on a term that expired in 2007, by a letter dated 2025-01-31, and the last holdover commissioner, Trey Trainor, resigned in October 2025. The statute permitting holdover service is unchanged, so a future commissioner can still serve past a term.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Requires Congress: the Quote asks for “legislative language”, so the item is leveled on the Requires-Congress ladder, and no bill exists to climb it.
  • The removal is the reason this is not simply an empty not started: it is executive action against the practice the ask names, and under §3b it stays not started with the contrary — here, adjacent — action carried as Evidence. It is not partial, because the ask is for a rule limiting overstays and the statute that permits them is untouched; removing one holdover commissioner is a personnel act, not the elimination of holdover service.
  • No allowlisted Primary record of the removal letter was found; two independent allowlisted outlets (NPR and, in the same week, Axios and The Hill) carried it, and NPR is the one readable to an agent. thehill.com and axios.com are 403 to curl.
  • Negative search: bills.ndjson title greps for “Election Commission”, “holdover”, “hold over”, “Federal Election Campaign” → one hit, an unrelated constitutional amendment resolution (H.J.Res. 119).
Action
eliminate
Object
holdover service by FEC commissioners past their six-year terms
ID
2229