Evaluating Campaign Finance Oversight delivers what it promises . . . The book meets a glaring need in campaign finance scholarship by looking at the agency from all angles. It is appropriate for scholars, graduate students, law students, and advanced undergraduates. Every research library should have a copy.

Choice

“Although there are many books on campaign finance, this is the first book to provide a clear picture of how the Federal Election Commission makes decisions. This timely, well-written book will be indispensable to anyone interested in how government regulates the role of money in politics, or to anyone with an interest in the federal bureaucracy.”

Robert Boatright, Clark University

“This portrait of the FEC demonstrates that it functions poorly as a regulator of federal campaign finances for reasons both within and beyond the agency's control. Assembling a history of the agency and campaign finance law more broadly, Sebold provides the most complete account of an agency that lacks the capacity to keep up with the unruly world of money in US elections.”

Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin-Madison

“Voters hate money coursing through our political system. Sebold effectively documents the Federal Election Commission’s struggles—some self-inflicted, some inflicted by the courts and Congress—to promote clean elections.”

Eric Heberlig, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte