History Of Campaign Finance Reform

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

A further argument that compliments the idea that money increasingly dominates the US electoral process and is the main factor in contributing to a candidate’s success is Congress’ attempts to try and limit its influence. The Bi-Partisan Campaign Reform Act 2002 set limits on campaign finance but was effectively struck down in Citizens United 2010. Congress isn’t trying to set limits on the amount of events a candidate runs but rather the expenditure limits. This suggests that money increasingly dominates the US electoral process and is the main factor in contributing to a candidate’s success because Congress trying to limit indicates its influence and dominance. In the UK, there is a strict campaign finance rule, which also compliments the idea that it is a dominant factor.

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

Daniel R. Ortiz’s writing, The Democratic Paradox of Campaign Finance Reform states that those who argue for campaign finance reform, violate the democratic theory in the name of defending it. This article reveals the paradox between campaign finance reform and other types of regulation of political process. Although the paradox is unavoidable, along with discomforting, it should be made evident.

The 1970s began a more active era of campaign finance reform. The passing of the Revenue Act of 1971 allows citizens to contribute one dollar to a presidential candidate’s campaign fund by checking a box on their federal income tax returns. Along with the Revenue Act of 1971, the Federal Election Campaign Act was also passed in 1971. This law institutes disclosure requirements for federal candidates, political parties, and political action committees of donations more than $100. This law also sets a spending limit of $50,000

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

In 1974, FECA–the Federal Election Campaign Act–a campaign finance law, was amended to place legal limits on campaign elections to a maximum of $1,000 per individual and $5,000 per PAC–political action committee–for each primary, election and runoff. However, FECA neglected to take into account the effects of inflation. Since 1974, inflation has caused $1,000 today to equate to only $240 in 1974, less than a fourth of the originally intended amount. Due to this, candidates need to raise four times the amount of money that they did 41 years ago when the act was amended. Consequently, candidates must focus more on fundraising and have less time to meet citizens and tend to their official

There were several landmark supreme court cases and laws before Citizens United that attempted to regulate campaign contributions. Political corruption can easily be caused by increased amounts of funds going to a candidate. A candidate will be more likely to benefit corporate interests because that will allow them to get more money later to help in reelection efforts. This becomes problematic because average citizens do not have the ability to donate large sums of money to a candidate. This makes the speech of large corporations worth far more than the average citizen. This can have a drastic impact on the marketplace of ideas. John Stuart Mills in his book, On Liberty, creates the marketplace of ideas. This marketplace consists of all speech being able to have equal weight and face

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

Following the Watergate scandal, the Federal Elections Campaign Act of 1974 was amended to create the regulatory agency, known as the Federal Elections Commission, in 1975. The duties of the FEC consist largely of enforcing regulation, limitation, and prohibition on financial contributions to federal campaigns, candidates, political parties, and political action committees. The Act has thoroughly set limits on the amount of money a person or committee may donate to the previously mentioned situations. For example, an individual can donate no more than $2,600 to any federal campaign per election, and a combined limit of $10,000 to local and state parties every calendar year. The case at hand involves Shaun McCutcheon challenging the aggregate limits as a violation of the First Amendment right of expression. An Alabaman Conservative businessman, McCutcheon expressed that he wished to donate more than the contributions he was able to make in the last election cycle. He wanted to contribute an amount that would stay within base limits but surpass aggregate limits set by the FEC.

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.

     After President Nixon and the Watergate controversy in 1971, the United States began to put limits on how much a candidate could receive and spend within a campaign. In order to enforce fairness between candidates,

Another aspect of FECA was to limit hard money. The philosophy behind this was to restrict the amount of money one individual could give directly to a PAC so they would not have too much influence in the outcome of an election. As a reaction, the PACs started investing into media outlets and began creating commercials. By doing this PACs were able to maintain their influence while still obeying the campaign laws (Hughes 4:30-5:00).