Summary: Fair Political Process

Diving in the Citizen’s United Ruling case state that corporations and other independent groups have the right to raise unlimited campaign funds. This campaign fund, representing the corporation's freedom of speech, can be used for and against federal candidates. The ruling of Citizen United permitted groups to make “independent expenditures,” not affiliated with any candidate or party since they were not allowed to spend treasury funds in Federal elections (Citizens United). Corporations and unions can have a certain limited contribution to their political action committees, organizations that raise and spend money for specific candidates, that then contribute to the outcome of federal campaigns. Organizations, social welfare, and trade associations

On 10 May 1969 at 0730, 3-187 Infantry set out to find and destroy the 29th Regiment,

“They [the blacks] had no rights which the man was bound to respect.” Roger B. Taney had stated. Roger B. Taney was a man whose opinions mattered. They were very well known to most people. Roger grew up in Maryland. He lived from March 17, 1777 to October 12, 1864. He was married to Anne Key and had 1 well known kid, her names was Alice. Alice wasn't well known for anything special but that she died in 1855 from yellow fever. Unlike his daughter he impacted the world greatly. He was know for things that in the U.S. now we disapprove of.

The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 is a "law that requires all candidates to fully disclose all contributions and expenditures in excess of $100." (pg.161) This law proved very helpful because in 1968, before they really started pushing disclosure, candidates would report spending $8.5 million but four years later candidates were reporting that they had spent about $88.9 million. It was a giant leap in what they were spending, over ten times the said amount. The FECA also made it to where "it was permissible for corporations and labor unions to set up separate, segregated funds that could be used for a political purpose." (pg.161) Having this created a lot of PACs that would give political parties and interest groups money to running

During local, state, or federal election there is a limited amount of time and information that a voter has to help him/her decide for which candidate he or she wants to vote. Before the ruling in Citizens United v FEC, private donations from voters were needed to provide candidates with financial means to create commercials, billboards, etc. In turn, this gave the voters a voice in who is to lead their government. Corporations were limited in the amount they could provide to their candidate of choice. After the ruling, corporations can now match every private donation and contribute an unlimited amount on top of that in order to support their candidate. This creates a problem because a corporation can potentially suffocate voters with campaign ads without the other candidates' ads being heard. Therefore creating an uneven debate and platform for Democracy to work.

After the Watergate scandal, Congress attempted to weave out corruption in political campaigns by restricting financial contributions to candidates. Among other things, the law set limits on the amount of money an individual could contribute to a single campaign and it required reporting of contributions above a certain amount. The Federal Election Commission was created to enforce the statute.

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

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.

During the course of the Watergate investigation, it was discovered that nearly forty different corporations and individual executives had made illegal contributions to both parties during the 1972 presidential campaign. As a result, Congress enacted sweeping campaign finance reforms in 1974, limiting the amount of contributions to political campaigns and establishing guidelines for the detailed accounting and reporting of donations and

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

With the introduction of “soft” money in politics, elections no longer go to the best candidate, but simply to the richer one. Soft money is defined as unregulated money that is given to the political parties that ends up being used by candidates in an election. In last year’s elections, the Republican and Democratic parties raised more than one-half of a billion dollars in soft money. Current politicians are pushing the envelope farther than any previous administrations when it comes to finding loopholes in the legal system for campaign fundraising. The legal limit that any one person can contribute to a given candidate or campaign is one thousand dollars. There is, however, no limit on the amount of money one

Fear is defined as an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. Fear itself is terrifying, it leaves one feeling helpless; like they are left with only one or no options. The rise of Hitler and the Holocaust rampaged because due to fear of a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy to take over the world. Fear has left the land of immigrants, the United States of America, feeling as it need to put up tall walls. Fear makes people feel like they need to do the most irrational things. Just as fear caused the death of millions during the Holocaust, it killed hundreds around the world during the different periods of witch trials. During the monarchy led by King James 1 England suffered

     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,

Do you have a favorite president? Have you ever voted for president? The United States election process was created in 1787 and went into action in 1789 by the founding fathers (“Presidential Elections”). In the first election, two candidates that ran for office included George Washington and John Adams. Through the original election process, George Washington ended up taking office (“Electoral College”). The election process has changed many times since 1789 to become the current election process. Our election process is fair because the candidates and voters have beneficial requirements, the candidates give a valid preview of their government ideas, and the candidate votes are determined by both the public and experienced politicians.

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.