Cash On Hands Case Analysis

In a court case in 2010, Speechnow.org v. Federal Election Commission, the ability to spend virtually limitless money on an election was given under first amendment protection. With this ruling, Political Action Committees, or super PACs, have become tremendously influential when it comes to elections. Unlike regular PACs, these super PACs cannot directly donate any raised money directly to this political candidate. While these parties can not directly donate this raised money, and must be independent of the candidate they support or oppose, there is a huge debate of the unclear line involved with who can be a part of these super PACs. For example, Obama had his Republican challenger and former aides of his office supporting his super PAC.

"Individuals and PACs in finance, insurance, and real estate have contributed over $2 billion to federal campaigns since 1990. Wall Street contributions increased from $60 million in 1990 to $311 million in 2005" (Wall online). "Electoral competition is achieved when qualified candidates have access to sufficient spending to become known to the voters" (Does online). Therefore the candidate must resort to any means necessary to have sufficient funds to run a successful campaign. Stricter campaign financing guidelines are needed to limit the amount of donations to candidates because interest money is a dominant factor in campaigns. It steers the ideological views of the candidate toward the Political Action Committee that donates the most

The radio program draws an overall picture of the subprime mortgage crisis, how the subprime market was created, how the crisis happened, what were the result and its impact. (See appendix A - my summary of the case)

In 2012, in an effort to win reelection as President of the United States, Barack Obama raised $1072.6 million dollars. $78.8 million of it was raised by the Priorities USA Action Super PAC. (Ashkenas, Ericson, Parlapiano, and Willis, 2012) PACs or Political Action Committees are groups formed in order to raise and spend money for a political candidate. PACs began in 1944 and had strict guidelines set by the Federal Election Committee in which an individual could only donate $2,500 to a PAC and companies were not allowed to donate money. This changed in 2010 with the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Citizens United in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee case which indirectly led to the formation of Super PACs which allowed for unlimited spending and unlimited donations from individuals or corporations to political

As you know now incumbents are required to fundraise for various problems. There are only two main ways to fundraise. The two ways are calling for donors or hold fundraisers. Calling for donors is a serious issue with congressional fundraising. If a politician wants to ask for donations through the phone, they need to go to their party fundraising building. It is because the law states that politicians can’t accept donations on government property or their office (Sullivan). These politicians will enter the building and rent a cubicle. In the cubicle, they have an instruction binder, a Rolodex of potential donors, a telephone and an assistant, who is making sure that the politician is following the protocol (Sullivan). The candidate stays in that cubicle until they accumulate enough funds for that day. (Insert more about fundraisers). A majority of politicians felt that congressional fundraising was regret in their political career. Hon Alan Simpson, a former member of the senate, said that “I felt used when I had to go to raise money, I was embarrassed, I thought it was ugly, I thought it was demeaning”. Senator Dick Durban said that revealing the how many hours of talking about raising money will be an embarrassment to his career embarrassment. U.S Representative Steve Israel said, “I don’t think I can spend another day in another call room making another call begging for money…”These are some examples of how congressional fundraising is horrific. (insert ending

While gaining support from the general public can be stimulated by countless political figures, the greatest influencer in politics continues to be money. Campaign spending is a strong determinant in voting outcomes, further denoting its overwhelming importance. Funding and spending gain importance relative to the size of the campaign; gaining support for this bill would likely cost a significant amount, as support is needed across the state. Campaigning at this capacity requires advertisements, commercials, appearances, and possibly travel, all of which demand significant funding. However, the nature of this campaign lends itself well to considerable funding, as “organizational contributors tend to support issues in the area of... tax and revenue policy” (Braunstein, 2004, 124). This unwavering support from countless contributors will provide the state legislators an opportunity to broadcast their campaign and positively market Senate Bill 325.

Candidates are allowed to have a maximum of: $2,700 per election, limit applies separately to each election. Primaries, runoffs and general elections are considered separate elections. $5,000 per calendar year to a PAC (political action committee) that supports the candidate and to fund other election-related activities. $10,000 per calendar year to a State or local party committee. $33,400 per calendar year to a national party committee. $100 in currency (cash) to any political committee. (Anonymous cash contributions may not exceed $50.) Contributions exceeding $100 must be made by check, money order or other written instrument “Fec gov”. End of the year financial reports filed with the Federal Election Commission shed some light on where congressional candidates are positioning themselves ahead of the June primary and, looking further, to the general election in November. Philanthropist Susie Lee reported $646,563 cash-on-hand and took in $724,774 in contributions during 2015. She's also lent her campaign $150,000, filings show. Her cash-on-hand comes within striking distance of Hardy's war chest. He reported $659,592 cash-on-hand in his filing. Lee also had support from the gaming industry, including $5,400 from Horn buckle,

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,

The Democratic and Republican presidential nominees for 1999 raised an astounding 126 million to finance their campaigns in the primaries (Godfrey). The U.S. national political parties raised a record 107.2 million dollars in soft money contributions in 1999 (Campaign Finance Reform). During the 1995-96 elections, public citizens estimated that an astounding 150 million dollars was spent on "phony" issue ads designed to support or oppose congressional and presidential candidates (Campaign Finance Reform). This outrageous influx of money into congressional and presidential campaigns has placed a blanket of corruption and injustice over our nation’s elections. With the rise of campaign corruption, many

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

Campaign Financing is the process of giving money to either a Super PAC or the candidate themselves. A Super PAC is an organization

Effective election campaigns have always relied on the candidates’ ability to raise money. Even in the days before television, radio and the internet, it still took money to get the word out to the people in a far-flung land. However, today’s candidates are faced with raising larger and larger amounts of money with each new election that comes along.

To raise this amount, you are to reach out to members of your own political party who will most likely be more charitable towards you. You can use your personal connections and PAC’s to receive donations from. If desired, you can use some of your own finances along with your name recognition. Also another great source of receiving donations is from individuals and businesses who are favor of your campaign message.

Campaign finance reform is a movement in the United States to help change the involvement of money in American political campaigns (Boundless, 2015). “ Throughout the history of campaign finance reform, three main areas have consistently been the target of regulation: contributions, expenditures, and advertising. Over the years Congress has instituted limits on how much individuals or organizations may contribute to federal campaign committees and political groups, how much campaign committees may spend during the course of an election, and how much money might be used for advertising expenses during a campaign” (Smith, 2010). To help limit contributions, expenditures, and advertising Congress has passed laws which are known as campaign finance

politics and its effect on elections and public policy. This site allows me to see the numeric value for individuals and corporations who donated to a specific presidential candidate. I will have to allow for the fact that several corporations and individuals donated to multiple candidates within the same party. My goal is to both examine donations given to parties and to specific candidates to allow for a more complete measurement. I also must keep in mind that some donations will be under the names of companies and businesses whose leaders may receive a cabinet position. I will measure my independent variable by a scale of 0-200 in dollars, thousands. Again, I am choosing this coding as it is done by Herberlig and Larson (2007). These dollar ranges encompass the majority of the donations given by individuals or cooperation’s to specific parties, thus a higher score would theoretically mean a higher chance that an individual will be chosen for a cabinet appointment. Meaning, there should be a positive correlation between the dependent, the nominees, and the independents, the nominees who did and the campaign donations. There should be a negative correlation among nominees who show low campaign donations and those that did not get