Campaign Financing: When it comes to national elections, people need money to fund their campaigns. But, usually people are not self-financing, that is, they don’t simply spend their own money, they require donations. When it comes to these donations A. How much money are we talking about at the federal level? Where does it come from? Where does it go? Who were the five biggest, individuak donors for Obama and Romney and how much did they donate? Are there any regulations, constraints? Can anyone donate as much as they like? Are there limits as to the minimum you can donate? B. Do you think there should be any limitations or constraints? What’s your ideal scenario and how do we get there? How would the country benefit in this scenario? 5-6 pages, MLA or APA format. Due Feb. 26, be sure to answer all the questions in both sets, A & B. You will be graded on spelling, grammar, style and substance. See some links below to get you started. Click https://www.fec.gov/ link to open resource. Click https://www.opensecrets.org/ link to open resource. https://www.cfinst.org/law.aspx Skip to main content Messages Jennifer Smith POL-120-04E-2016SP-American Government Page path POL-120-04E-2016SP Section 6 The Campaign Finance System Anyone looking into the cost of campaigns these days is bound to experience sticker shock. Total campaign spending across the country reached $3 billion in 2000; the cost was even higher in 2004. The average cost of winning a seat in the US Senate was $4.5 million in 2000; in the House of Representatives it was more than $500,000. Looking at Federal Election Commission data, about one-fourth of the money that candidates spend comes from small, direct-mail contributions; another fourth comes from large individual gifts; another fourth comes from political action committees; and the remaining fourth comes from the candidates themselves. This explosive growth in campaign spending raises normative concerns about the democratic process. We need to ask ourselves where the money is coming from. Who is gaining influence and access to government officials through campaign contributions? Whose voices are being heard, and which groups are being crowded out of the political process because they can’t compete with the big spenders? Given the increasing amounts of money that candidates spend on campaigns and the related potential for “buying” political influence, it is not surprising that there have been several attempts to regulate campaign spending in the U.S. One of the most notable of these attempts came in 1971 with the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). The act, and several key amendments that Congress adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal in 1974, regulated how much individual citizens and political action committees could give to candidates over the course of a campaign. The FECA limits going into the 2000 presidential election season were as follows: Individuals could give up to $1,000 to a candidate for federal office in the primary, and up to another $1,000 for the general election. Individuals could give political parties up to $20,000 per calendar year. Political action committees could give up to $5,000 to a candidate for federal office in the primary, and up to another $5,000 for the general election. Candidates had to disclose how they spent the donations they received. Note that these regulations under the FECA limit only the money that can be given directly to candidates and parties for the purposes of running an election campaign (so called “hard” money). The act places no limits on “soft” money (money that is spent by interest groups, political parties, and individual citizens independently of the candidates’ official campaigns for the purpose of “voter education”). Technically, soft money cannot be used to directly support a candidate (ads paid for with soft money cannot use phrases like “vote for/elect/defeat candidate x”). Nonetheless, ads paid for with soft money can—and often do—mention the names of candidates in connection to the advocacy of campaign issues (i.e. “Candidate X supports abortion,” or “Candidate X has raised taxes three times”). Historically, this unlimited use of soft money for “independent expenditures” has been protected under the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. In the landmark case of Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court ruled that citizens, groups, and candidates have the constitutional right to spend as much of their own money as they desire in advocating their own political positions. At the same time, the Court argued that money given directly to campaigns or used for the explicit support of a candidate (hard money) CAN be limited in order to protect against corruption of the electoral system. At its heart, Buckley v. Valeo highlights the tension between the necessity to protect against electoral corruption and to preserve individual rights to free speech. Creating balance between these ideas has been at the heart of all attempts to regulate campaign finance after 1976. In accordance with the regulations established through the FECA and Buckley v. Valeo, campaign finance in the U.S. after 1976 moved largely toward a system of “parallel campaigns” in which candidates would run one campaign, using hard money donations and their own personal finances, while parties and other groups would run complementary but independent “issue advocacy” campaigns in support of the candidates. Soft money has paid for enormous amounts of political advertising on behalf of party nominees that looks no different from the ads individual candidates air in an election season. The amount of soft money flowing to political parties grew to $262 million during the 1996 presidential race and continued to escalate in 2000. Recognizing the increasing role of unregulated soft money in electoral politics, recent advocates of campaign finance reform have sought to limit the use of soft money in a way that the courts might accept as appropriate under the First Amendment. Lead by former presidential candidate John McCain, these reformers were finally successful in 2002, when Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCRA), which is known more popularly as the McCain-Feingold reform (after the Senators who sponsored the legislation). The new BCRA restricts the use of soft money by political parties and limits the use of soft money by other groups in the months immediately prior to federal elections. To compensate for this loss, the act also doubles the amount of hard money that individuals can donate to candidates. Some critics, including Senator Mitch McConnell (R, KY), argued that the BCRA regulations for soft money trampled citizen’s right to free speech. However, in McConnell v. FEC (2003) the Supreme Court ruled that most of the regulations imposed under the BCRA were constitutionally justifiable and sufficiently balanced the right to free speech against the need to protect the integrity of elections. Today, following McConnell v. FEC, the major regulations imposed by the BCRA are as follows: National parties can neither accept nor spend soft money. State parties are limited to accepting $10,000 per donor in soft money per year, to be spent specifically on voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives for federal elections. Limits on individuals’ hard money contributions to campaigns were raised to $2000 per candidate per campaign. Limits on individuals’ hard money contributions to political parties were raised to $25,000 per year. PAC limits remain the same as under the FECA (PACs can give up to $5,000 to a candidate for federal office in the primary, and up to another $5,000 for the general election.) Advertisements by unions, corporations, or nonprofit organizations that refer to a federal candidate, reach his or her electorate, and run within sixty days of a general election or thirty days of a primary must be paid for with regulated hard money through PACs. While some people still say that the BCRA unfairly limits the freedom to speak out about politics, others argue that it doesn’t go far enough—that soft money will still play a major role in federal elections. Money, these critics argue, will always find a way to influence politics. Last modified: Tuesday, July 28, 2015, 2:52 PM
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