Eliminating the EAC

The House Administration Committee has voted to eliminate the EAC. The story can be found here.  This is an interesting case — from a public administration perspective — because it raises the interesting question of how helpful/relevant can an agency be when it has no real powers to motivate those who it should regulate (i.e., state and local election offices).  Given that California still does not have a statewide voter registration system and numerous states have very weak laws for what constitutes a vote, it is not surprising that the House Administration Committee wonders what it gets from the EAC.  Of course, it was this same House committee that explicitly refused to give the EAC any regulatory power in the first place.  There is a certain irony in creating a weak agency and then criticizing it for being ineffective.