Campaign Finance Flashcards
What three different places can campaign donations go to?
- national parties
- presidential candidates
- super PACs
What are the three main concerns over the role of money in US elections?
- excessive influence of major donors
- secrecy surrounding who is donating and receiving cash
- inequality of expenditure between candidates or parties
What are the three major finance regulations on presidential elections?
- Federal Election Campaign Act 1974
- Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act 2002
- Citizens United v Federal Election Commission 2010
McCutcheon v FEC 2014
- SC struck down limits on individual campaign contributions
- ruled that federal limits on combined donations to candidates / parties / PACs were an unconstitutional infringement on free speech
What is the purpose of Federal Election Campaign Act?
introduced a law to regulate money in elections
What were the main impacts of FECA?
- placed legal limits on campaign contributions
- creates a maximum expenditure limit for each candidate in the presidential election
- requires candidates to disclose sources of campaign contributions and campaign expenditure
- created federal funding of presidential and primary elections
- created PACs
What are PACs?
- political action committee
- raises limited amounts of money
- spend contributions for the express purpose of electing or defeating candidates
Why must a PAC be created?
has to be created by any group wanting to donate money to a campaign
What flaws are within FECA that has severely reduces its effectiveness in regulating campaign finance?
- increase in soft money
- SC has undermined it on numerous accounts
- end of federal funding
What is soft money?
money donated by interest groups or individuals or spent by parties or candidates that could not be regulated under the law
How is FECA flawed?
loopholes have been found in order for contrinued donations or spending wihtout regulations
Give an example of a loophole in FECA
business/interest groups spend money on campaign advertising for or against a candidate without directly donating money to a candidates campaign
Where is the loophole within FECA?
restrictions cover funding of candidates but not funding of parties
How did FECA have an effect on federal funding?
- reduced need for federal funds
- candidates became increasingly effective at raising money
How did Bush raise money for his campaign?
- raised more than the campaign limit
- without using federal funds
- by rejecting federal funds he was not constrained by campaign expenditure limits
What impacts did the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act 2022 bring?
- national party committees are banned from raising or spending ‘soft money’
- labour unions and corporations are forbidden from directly funding issue ads
- unions and corporations forbidden from financing ads that mention a federal candidate within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary
- ban on contributions from foreign nationals
What effect does Citizens United have on campaign finance?
politicians could accept corporate campaign contributions and other spending without any limits
Why is it difficult for US to have effective reform on campaign finance?
- ability to find loopholes e.g. soft money
- 1st amendment and ideological balance of SC in striking down key provisions
- lack of legislation on the issue
What are Super PACs ?
raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose political candidates but without directly donating or coordinating with these candidares
What are super PACs criticised for encouraging?
- inequality of funding
- negative campaigning
- excessive influence of major donors
When did super PACs dominate?
since 2010 mid term congressional elections
Give a super PAC statistic
by 2016 there were 2398 Super PACs raising over $1.5 billion during that year’s elections
