Ann M. Ravel

Ann M. Ravel
Chair of the Federal Election Commission
In office January 1, 2015 – December 31, 2015
President	Barack Obama
Preceded by	Lee E. Goodman
Succeeded by	Matthew S. Petersen
Member of the Federal Election Commission
In office October 25, 2013 – March 1, 2017
President	Barack Obama
Personal details
Born	New York City
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Stephen Ravel
Children	Three
Alma mater	Hastings Law School, UC Berkeley
Profession	Attorney

Ann M. Ravel was a Democrat Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission (FEC), an independent regulatory agency created by Congress to administer and enforce campaign finance law.

Ravel was appointed by President Obama on June 21, 2013, and, after unanimous confirmation by the United States Senate, took office on October 25, 2013. She was Chair of the Commission for 2015, and Vice Chair in 2014. Ravel announced her resignation from the commission on February 19, 2017, effective on March 1, 2017.

Ravel received a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She lives in Los Gatos, California with her husband, Stephen, an independent adoption attorney. She has three children, two granddaughters and one grandson.

Prior to joining the FEC, Ravel was appointed by California Governor Jerry Brown in February 2011 to serve as the Chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). At the FPPC, Ravel oversaw the regulation of campaign finance, lobbyist registration and reporting, and ethics and conflicts of interest related to officeholders and public employees. In Ravel’s most significant case as Chair, the FPPC pursued a year-long investigation into the methods used by donors who seek to influence political campaigns by anonymous methods. In October 2013, the FPPC fined the Center to Protect Patient Rights and Americans for Responsible Leadership $1 million for forwarding $15 million in "dark money" contributions to a California committee without disclosing the source of those contributions. Ravel testified about the case before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee considering the issue of nondisclosure by political groups on April 30, 2014. While at the FPPC, Ravel sought to leverage technology to "enhance efficiency, improve governance and repair the relationship between the public and their government." To that end, the FPPC adopted regulations to allow political contributions to be made by text message and created an online, searchable database of California public officials’ Statements of Economic Interests. During Ravel’s tenure, the FPPC also released a mobile phone application to track gifts received by public officials and held a hackathon to explore creative options to better disclose the Agency’s public data. As Chair of the FPPC, Ravel created the Regulation Clarification Project, an effort to clarify and streamline California regulations. This project was designed to make the law more understandable to the public, promote easier and less onerous compliance for state and local officials, and ensure that the regulations complied with the governing statutes and courts decisions. Among other changes, the FPPC created guides to analyze gift laws and reorganized the regulations by topic. During her tenure at the FPPC, she established the States Unified Network (SUN) Center, a nonpartisan group of state and local jurisdictions promoting transparency in campaign finance. The group shares enforcement, litigation, and campaign finance data through a public website, which provides nationwide disclosure and aids in enforcement.

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