This is very interesting:

On December 3, 2013, the Commission deadlocked 3-3 on whether to find reason to believe that Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (“Crossroads GPS”), a 501(c)(4) “socialw elfare organization,”‘ should have registered and reported as a political committee under the Federal Election Campaign Act (the “Act”) and Commission regulations. As we explained at the time, we believe that, as a result of our colleagues’ votes in that case, the Commission “failed to adhere to its own policy on political committee status or to recent judicial decisions finding that policy to be valid and constitutional.” The complainants then brought suit against
the Commission for its failure to take action against Crossroads GPS.

We are writing now to address an issue that arises in the context of this litigation, but that has much broader significance^the issue of how courts review a 3-3 deadlock at the FEC. In particular, we are concerned about the potential that courts will continue to grant deference to the perspectives of oniy half of the members of the  Commission when the Commission has a split vote. This “deadlock deference” appears to be unique to the enforcement process at the FEC, for reasons that the D.C. Circuit has never fully explained. Such deference undermines the bipartisan structure of the agency and puts complainants at a unique disadvantage in precisely the process where Congress sought to empower them. Moreover, the longstanding justifications for granting deference to an administrative agency—the presence of subject-matter expertise and the ability to craft policy compromises—are entirely absent in the case of a deadlock.