Campaign Funding Influencing Elections Essay

Campaign Finance has developed numerous changes to our society today due to the many cases, and newborn restrictions in the past. Campaign Finance is a term that refers to the efforts to regulate political campaign in terms of funding. This funding is well identified as the spending to support political candidates and their chance campaigns. The support they receive helps them become a more promoted candidate as well as increasing their campaign. In the case Buckley v. Valeo (1976), James Buckley, a conservative New York senator felt that many new restrictions brought upon the Presidential campaign finance were unconstitutional. These restrictions involved new restrictions to federal funding, meaning that candidates were limited on what

Each year billions of dollars are spent on getting candidates of various offices of government elected. Many candidates have had tremendous success through the efforts of much needed monetary contributions to their campaign. Contributors range from unions, religious leaders, organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD), the National Rifle Association (NRA), and senior citizens groups. When these groups, known as special interest groups, donate to candidate’s campaign, they expect the candidate to respond to their issues. Because special interest groups, as well as private citizens donate more and more money to campaigns, there is some concern that there is a great need for campaign finance reform.

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 issue of campaign financing was argued again more recently in the Supreme Court case, Citizens United v FEC. In this case the Citizens United conservative non-profit argued that an ad for the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 was critical of George Bush and therefore the commercial was a campaigning ad funded by an outside group within sixty days of the general election. Citizens United argued the ad was illegal according to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) passed in 2002 that stated no electioneering committee could fund an ad 60 days before an election. Citizens United believed Fahrenheit 9/11 was critical of Bush’s response to 9/11 and therefore was an ad for the opposing candidate Al Gore. The Supreme Court decided that if a company wants to use their money to campaign, since money is an expression of speech, there cannot be any law limiting when you can express your views politically. The court determined that the portions of FECA and BCRA related to restrictions on corporate and labor union spending was unconstitutional as it prohibited free speech. Citizens United reaffirmed the president set by Buckley vs. Valeo that money is

Another argument agrees that money increasingly dominates the US electoral process and is the main factor in contributing to a candidate’s success is that candidates who spend more generally win. In 2012, Mitt Romney’s

Patronage was a prevalent part of early elections. During most of the early history of the United States, there was no legislation passed on behalf of campaign finance

Fundraising success correlates strongly with electoral success. In 2002, 95 percent of House winners raised more than their opponents. In 2004, more than 95 percent of House winners outspent their opponents. (4 “Money Is the Victor in 2002 Midterm Elections,” Center for Responsive Politics, Nov. 6, 2002. 5 “2004 Election Outcome: Money Wins,” Center for Responsive Politics, Nov. 3,

In the 2016 election cycle, over 1.4 billion dollars was given to presidential candidates (Federal Election Commission 2016a). This is more than any other presidential election cycle in history (Price 2016). Another billion dollars was given to U.S. House of Representatives candidates, and about 600 million dollars was given to U.S. Senate candidates (Federal Election Commission 2016b). The majority of this money went to funding the candidates’ campaigns. This money controlled whose ads voter’s saw on television and which candidates were able to afford to travel the country campaigning for votes. In many cases, the candidate with the most money available won their election. Most campaigns are financed in large part by a small number

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

That is one reason why the public has come to reject the idea of the Super PACs. It has the turned the political campaign into a shallow, reality television, mud-slinging type of contest from which the candidates can never return. The ads being run in the newspapers, television, and radio stations cost these candidates and Super PACs money that could have been used for better political means such as contributions to charitable organizations by the candidates or their support groups on their behalf. That sort of act would have had a greater political impact upon the voting public than an ad campaign explaining the ills of Newt Gingrich. Even more sickening, is the fact that most of the candidates will feign knowledge of participation in any negative campaign movements because of the independent nature of the Super PACs. The candidate can deny any involvement in the act all the while coordinating with his Super PAC under the radar of mass media. These negative campaigns leave the candidate free and clear of any involvement as all the Super PAC has to do is run the ad with a clear disclaimer absolving the candidate the ad supports of any wrong doing because the ad was not sanctioned by the candidate or political party.

The Supreme Court also sited in that same ruling that, “In a free society by our Constitution, it is not the government, but the people-individually as citizens and candidates and collectively as associations and political committees-who must retain control over the quantity and range of debate on public issues in a political campaign” (Keena 6). While it may be a violation of freedom of speech to limit television ads, many of today’s candidates have made a mockery of the existing legislature regarding campaign financing. Ex-president Bill Clinton bent the rules and laws more than possibly any elected official ever, and certainly farther than anyone since Richard Nixon. Thad Cochran, a veteran Republican senator from Mississippi, stated, “Clinton used his own party and had it operated out of the campaign office, which was the White House, to coordinate expenditures by the Democratic Party and his election campaign in an unlimited amount, using soft money to pay for the ads, with his own chief-of-staff making the decisions about the kind of advertising, and Clinton himself was involved in writing some of the ads that were actually run by the Democratic Party using soft money” (Williams 10). No elected official had ever gone so far as to run soft money ads out of his own office, let alone rewrite the ads himself. It is cases such as this one that are prime examples for why there is such a need for new laws to govern campaign financing.

With the upcoming presidential election, it has been interesting to learn about things as they are actually happening in our country today. Among the many issues that surround the race to the office, financing the presidential election seems to be a major topic that is always in the public eye.      There are many different views on how the election should be financed but it is hard to tell how far government funding and donations can go before democracy is left behind.

Political contributions and its limit have a long history and evolution process. In 1896, an Industrialist named Mark Hanna made excessive amount of contributions to candidate William McKinley. It was controversial of the growing influence of big business in American politics. People then started to have voice regarding to regulating the

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.