...there's always more they can do, and frankly making a new website which will post forensic election data after the time when it is relevant doesn't count as

...there's always more they can do, and frankly making a new website which will post forensic election data after the time when it is relevant doesn't count as an action on the political chessboard of the health of the country-- on the separate, smaller stakes chessboard of getting agency funding and squabbling over the budgeting of that funding, sure, this helps the FEC say they did something, which is worthwhile to them and maybe us as well. I think that we'd be better off discussing problem A than problem B, though. As far as what the FEC can do which might have an actual impact: the heads of the federal agencies can access the bully pulpit if they choose to, but typically their leaders are selected for pliability rather than assertiveness. I believe relatively recently the head of the SEC came out and told the media that they don't have enough resources to enforce their regulations in any capacity, which made quite a stir at the time and likely lead to funding for their more recent attempts to build high profile cases.