Essay about Campaign Finance Reform

Soft money is a term used for money that is obtained before regulations were sought out for candidate contributions. Being that soft money usage was coming to an end, this meant that state, local, and national parties were banned from receiving, spending, or transferring soft money. The BCRA has shaped the campaign finance into a better system because of how dangerous soft money can be. If soft money were to continue being used to represent different political parties, then what I believe could happen is the whole soft money system would go corrupt. The reason for corruption would be discovered once every political party was in possession of a majority of soft money and the federal government finally decided to take act. The federal government taking action will put almost all the parties in a deficit, making it unable for the different parties to supply the support needed for their

When Senators Russ Feingold and Senator McCain introduced the first version of the BCRA on September 7, 1995, soft money was still in the reform. “Soft money contributions, which were unregulated donations made to a political party, were not allowed under the law to influence individual candidates or campaigns. But in practice, soft money given to political parties was funneled to individual campaigns, or used to run phony "issue ads" that were actually advertisements for a candidate. As the parties collected more and more soft money, it became impossible to ignore at least the perception that large contributors, corporations, and labor unions were buying access to politicians. In the 1992 election cycle, the parties raised a total of $86 million in soft money. In 1996, that number more than tripled to $262 million. And in 2000, soft money receipts nearly doubled again to $495 million, nearly half a billion dollars. It was the equivalent of hanging a "For Sale" sign on our nation's capital (Feingold, 2004, p. 1). The McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan act bans these soft money contributions.

The campaign finance reform demonstrates some vital roles in a country’s government. It can be understood that the bill can be taken for advantage, but at the same time it can also be destructive. Elizabeth states “There are real concerns money poses about equality and corruption, but the cure is often worse than the disease” (Renstrom). The three important roles are the reform, the contribution, and the security.

From the very first elections held in the United States, there has always been a strong link between money and politics. During the first elections in the late 1700’s you had to be a white male landowner over the age of 21 in order to vote, meaning that you had to have money in order to have your vote counted. It seems today that we cannot go a day with out seeing campaign finance in the media, whether or not it is through advertisements for politicians in the media or asked to donate money to help let your favorite candidate win. Because campaign finance has always been on the back burner of political issues, there has hardly been any change to the large influence money has over the election process and politicians. While money has it’s

Dating back many decades, it appears that lobbying and politics have always gone hand and hand on any political stage. Lobbying has always had a strong presence in the legislation system. Lobbying is the process of offering campaign contributions, bribes, or information to policymakers for the purpose of achieving favorable policy outcomes. Conventional wisdom suggests that lobbying is the preferred mean for exerting political influence in rich countries and corruption in poor countries. The legislation is meant to benefit society and ensure that citizens are having their voices heard, instead of hindering them in favour of the multi-national corporations. Lobbying has a negative influence on legislations in both developed and developing

The right of free speech granted to all citizens in the first amendment, the necessity of funding expensive political campaigns, and the fact that small donations make a candidate responsive to the needs of their constituents, all make any restrictions on campaign financing unneeded and onerous. Congress should strike down any bills attempting to reform this essential part of the U.S. election process. Any further restrictions on donations to political campaigns will prove detrimental to the United States functioning system of elections by limiting individuals’ freedom of speech, making our candidate’s campaigns underfunded and unresponsive to the needs of the American people.

‘Despite several attempts to regulate campaign finance, money increasingly dominates the U.S. Electoral process and is the main factor contributing to a candidates success’ Discuss (30 marks)

Regulating soft money has been difficult because of constitutional issues that protect First Amendment rights, and Congress’ rights over regulating political parties must be focused on preventing fraud or corruption (Mason, 1997). Soft money is used to mobilize campaigns by using the money to support voter registration drives, and other similar activities designed to jump start a candidates’ campaign (Brennan Center, 2000). For this reason, soft money is important to an election campaign, and recently the amount of soft money raised for campaigns has skyrocketed. It has become a concern because it is largely unregulated and can be used to gain an unfair

The current network of campaign finance is a complicated web involving individual contributors, soft money and hard money, and political action committee influence. In the aftermath of the crooked Watergate scandal, anxiety over campaign finance led to the passage of two major reform bills—the Revenue Act of 1971 and the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974—that have set the guidelines and regulations for campaign finance. Although many other laws and acts have been passed in effort to regulate campaign finance, these two acts set the main standards for campaign finance regulation. The main ideas of the acts stipulate that candidates for the two houses of Congress receive no public funding, candidates in the presidential primaries receive matching dollars, and candidates

“All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law” This quote from Theodore Roosevelt illustrates how corporate money can be disastrous when involved in election cycles. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Supreme Court decided in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that companies and Super PAC’s could donate unlimited amount of money to support candidates. The Citizens United ruling has caused increased political corruption in the United States by giving candidates the money they need to win an election while changing policies that would be beneficial to the company.

The next presidential election will be one like no one has ever seen before in terms of campaign funding and expenses. Even now, the GOP Presidential Primary races are already showing signs of how money will not be an object for their presidential candidate. The seemingly limitless budget exists for these candidates thanks to the so-called Super PACs (Political Action Committees). These Super PACs are allowed to come up with independent financing for the presidential campaign, sans any budgetary ceilings. The inner workings of such a committee has left a bad taste in the mouths of the voters even though very little is known about the actual history and reasons for the existence of the Super PACS. This paper will delve into the committee's

     Candidates running for office should depend less on government funding and turn towards the public for their support. Rather then concerning ourselves with prohibiting the use of soft money we should control the amount of taxpayers' dollars that are being spent. How can we claim that the use of soft money goes against Democracy when we allow our government to fund

In a country built from unparalleled equality, our election system is not inclusive of the less affluent candidates. Inevitably, monetary funding has become a centralized focus point for American politics and has provided a reckless entry way for candidates not prepared for the presidency. Taking this current election for example, Hillary Clinton, democratic presidential candidate, received a donation of 25.6 million dollars from the Hedge-Fund, this being only a small fraction of her over all funding. Contrastingly, Jill Stein, Green Party Candidate, has only received 3.2 million dollars in total funding for her campaign. The difference is striking. Providing a

Campaign Finance Reform is a major issue of our day. As a Senator, I do not want my country being run by lobbyists, special interest groups, and superPacs. I believe in campaign finance reform, and that there should be a cap for people specifically for large companies, Super Pacs, interests groups, to fund campaigns of their choice. Hillary Clinton is a prime example of those select groups of people abusing campaign financing to their favor. As a politician she was controlled by those groups, not being a politician for the American people. I would like to be clear that the opportunity of being able to contribute to a campaign is a wonderful thing. It gets voters involved, and increases political participation across the board. At the same time, there should be a limit to how much you can fund a campaign because many people abuse the privilege of being able to finance a campaign.

The idea of money in politics has always been a polarizing issue. For over one hundred years the discussion of individuals and corporations financing campaigns has led to a debate of corruption versus free speech. Is money in politics a corrupting influence that always leads to quid pro quo? Or, is it an issue of allowing individuals to use their money as an extension of their freedom of speech? Recently, campaign finance reform has been a very dynamic issue. With the last major supreme court case Citizens United v. FEC, money in politics has taken a significant turn from the status quo. With only seven years after the Citizens United ruling we can already see the effects of less regulated free speech in politics.