The chair of the Federal Election Commission, Ann M. Ravel, has said in an interview with the New York Times that the agency charged with regulating the way money is raised and spent in elections is not capable of curtailing abuse.

“The likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim,” Ravel told the Times. “I never want to give up, but I’m not under any illusions. People think the FEC is dysfunctional. It’s worse than dysfunctional.”

The 2016 presidential campaign is expected to produce upwards of $10 billion in political spending, the Times reports. The Koch brothers alone have promised to raise $889 million. Watchdog groups have reportedly complained to the FEC that potential candidates like Jeb Bush and Martin O’Malley are raising millions of dollars without having officially declared.

But the FEC—created 40 years ago, after the Watergate scandal—has six commissioners who regularly find themselves divided 3-to-3 along party lines. The partisan divide is so deep and so broad that the commissioners cannot even agree over which rules to enforce.

Fines assessed by the commission dropped last year to $135,813 from $627,408 in 2013. According to the Times, the Republicans say this is because more people are playing by the rules.

“What’s really going on,” Ravel said, “is that the Republican commissioners don’t want to enforce the law, except in the most obvious cases. The rules aren’t being followed, and that’s destructive to the political process.”

Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.