The federal agency charged with helping states secure their election systems has a problem usually reserved for mom-and-pop stores and start-ups.
The four Election Assistance Commission members told Congress on Wednesday that their office is stifled by a shoe-string budget and has so few employees in some departments that a simple office flu could cripple operations.
"We have a number of areas where if someone is out of the office ... things grind to a halt," Commissioner Ben Hovland told the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. "And that's unacceptable."
For the EAC, created in 2002 to solve the raft of balloting problems exposed in the nearly tied Bush v. Gore presidential contest, the stakes couldn't be higher: With the first 2020 presidential primary seven months away, states and local governments are looking to the EAC for help certifying voting equipment, countering cyberthreats and dispersing grants to run flaw-free elections.
"There is no shortage of ambition at the EAC when it comes to supporting this work," all four commissioners said in a statement to the committee, "but there is a stark shortage of funds for such activities."
One bright spot for the EAC is that all four seats on the board are filled for the first time in almost a decade, and the group is speaking with one cross-partisan voice. But the agency's budget has been cut by more than half during this decade and the number of employees is down to 22 from nearly 50. The current $8 million appropriation, Hovland said, is actually less than what's allocated to fix potholes by Kansas City, Mo.
"That's unbelievable," independent Angus King of Maine responded. "I mean, that's like cutting the budget of the fire department in the middle of a five-alarm fire. We've never had such a serious attack on our electoral system as we've had in the last three years — and your budget is 50 percent of what it was nine years ago?"
Last year, Congress allocated $380 million in grant funding to help states improve their election systems and infrastructure, but the money has gone only so far, state election officials have told Congress.
It's still up in the air how much, if any, additional money will get appropriated for such purposes in time for the presidential contest. But Chairman Roy Blunt of Missouri, who's also No. 3 in the GOP majority's leadership, reiterated the Senate is unlikely to consider any election security policy legislation this year.
"At this point, I don't see any likelihood that those bills would get to the floor if we mark them up," he said.
Asked why by Minority Leader Dick Durbin of Illinois, Blunt in part blamed the decision by the new House Democratic majority to push through a package this winter that combined highly polarizing campaign finance and ethics provisions with election security proposals that enjoy bipartisan support.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell "is of the view that this debate reaches no conclusion," Blunt said. "And frankly, I think the extreme nature of HR 1 from the House makes it even less likely we are going to have that debate."
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.