A%20History%20of%20Campaign%20reform

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A History of Campaign reform

• Money in US Elections
• PART 1

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Scandals have led to the need to reform the way
politicians obtain money.

• Teapot Dome scandal (1925)
• Cabinet members illegally leased federal lands in
  exchange for bribes from private oil development
• Watergate scandal (1972)
• People from Nixons campaign broke into the
  Democratic Party headquarters to steal campaign
  documents and install listening devices

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Three Basic Strategies were implemented to stop
abuse in political contributions

1. Impose limits on giving, receiving, and spending
   political money
2. Require public disclosure of the sources and uses
   of political money
3. Give government subsidies to presidential
   candidates, campaigns, and parties to reduce
   their reliance on campaign contributors

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Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) (1971)

• Limited the amount that federal candidates could
  spend on advertising
• Required disclosure of donor information
• how they are spent
• Required PACs to register with the government and
  report all major contributions and expenditures
• PACS can contribute only 5,000 per election
• Created the Federal Election Commission (FEC)

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What is the Federal Election Commission (FEC)?

• Administers new campaign spending laws
• Provides for partial public funding for
  presidential primaries
• The FEC matches small individual contributions up
  to 250 as long as the candidate agrees to remain
  within spending limits
• Not all candidates choose to do this (ex George
  W. Bush John Kerry).
• Provides grants to major party presidential
  candidates running in the general election, if
  they also stop their own fundraising
• Both 2004 presidential candidates got 75 million
  from the FEC
• Even allowed grants to minor parties that polled
  5 of the total vote in a previous election
• And where did this money come from?
• You!
• Taxpayers can choose to allocate 1-3 of their
  income by checking off a box on their tax forms

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BUT, The Supreme court case of Buckley v. valeo
(1976) changed A few things

• The Supreme Court made a distinction between
  campaign spending and campaign contributions
• Congress can limit how much people contribute to
  somebody elses campaign
• Individual contributions
• to candidates per two year cycle 2,000
• to PACs per year 5,000
• to National Party Convention 5,000
• BUT, it cannot limit how much of their own money
  people spend on their own campaigns (1st
  Amendment)
• Thus, candidates can spend as much as they want
  on advertising as long as the money is theirs
  (ex wealthy Ross Perot can fund his own campaign
  with his own money without restrictions of FECA)

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Nonetheless, FECA, For 20 years, was successful
in limiting fundraising campaign spending

• By placing limitations, it helped to de-emphasize
  the chances of winning based on money
• All presidential candidates from 1974 to 2000
  accepted the matching funds provided by the
  government
• In the election of 2000, George W. Bush became
  the first to DECLINE the public funds for his
  campaign in the primary election
• However, he accepted government funds in the
  general election (67.5 million)

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However, there was still a few kinks in the
system. To get around this limitation, people
started raising soft money

• Soft money are contributions to a state or local
  party for party-building purposes.
• By doing this, they avoided giving money directly
  to candidate and gave it to political parties
  instead
• Hard money thus became known as money that was
  given directly to candidates
• Soft money was money donated to political
  parties.
• There was no limitation on how much soft money
  could be raised at any given time. Soft money was
  not regulated by FECA.

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However, The aggressive raising of soft money
funds created confusion and possible corruption

• Parties at first used it for voter registration
  drives, mailings, and generic party advertising
• But then they began transferring funds to state
  parties, which then ran ads for or against
  candidates
• In the 1996 election, the Democratic Party
  offered their donors perks for their soft money
  contributions
• The party offered donors free rides with Clinton
  on Air Force One air plane the chance to spend
  the night in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White
  House
• It was hard to distinguish soft money from hard
  money when the parties purchased advertising

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This led to the passage of the Bipartisan
campaign reform act (BCRA) (2002)

• Aka McCain-Feingold bill, named after its two
  chief sponsors in the Senate
• Banned soft money in federal campaigns completely
• It INCREASED the amount of hard money
  contributions
• Individuals could give candidates 2,100 for each
  primary general election
• Individuals could give federal candidates up to
  40,000, national party committees up to 23,900,
  and PACS up to 37,500
• Contribution limits were indexed to inflation
• Prevented corporations and labor unions for using
  general treasury funds for electoral purposes
• Provided an increase in contribution limits for
  candidates running against an opponent who was
  spending substantial amounts of his own money

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Politicians began to wonder was the BCRA
constitutional?

• In the Supreme Court case McConnell v. FEC
  (2004), the BCRA was deemed constitutional
• The Court felt that soft money should be banned
  because it purchased access to elected officials,
  and with that access came influence and the
  possibility or appearance of corruption
• Limited amounts of soft money could still be
  raised in state and local party committees for
  voter registration and get-out-the vote efforts

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Then Came the Supreme Court Case Citizens United
v. FEC (2010)