Today we will look more closely at the role of campaign contributions and the process of starting to regulate them in the 1970’s.
Today we will look more closely at the role of campaign contributions and the process of starting to regulate them in the 1970’s (1:48). We will then turn to the emergence of PACs and other organizations to avoid regulation (3:47). Finally, we will look at the Supreme Court case Citizens United and what that means for future elections (5:53).
Today’s question of the day (7:29): According to a 2018 Pew Research survey, what percent of Americans “ ‘think there should be limits on the amount of money individuals and organizations’ can spend?”
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Hi and welcome to the APsolute Recap: US Government Edition. Today’s episode will recap Campaign Finance
Lets Zoom out:
Unit 5 - Political Participation
Topic-5.11
Big idea - Civic Participation in a Representative Democracy
We touched on the idea of lobbying groups with resources being able to affect policy making in our previous episode. Today, we will look more closely at the role of campaign contributions and the debate over money and speech in American political campaigns. We will also look at the Supreme Court case Citizens United and what that means for future elections.
Lets Zoom in:
Running an American political campaign is very expensive. While there are some limits as to what can be donated to a campaign or candidate, there are no limits on how much a candidate can spend on running a campaign like there are in other countries. As a result, we see the cost of campaigning in the US continue to go up. It is estimated that for a competitive House race, a candidate might have to spend upwards of $1 million dollars. Then, couple that with the fact that House members run every two years, and it creates a situation where members of the House start fundraising for their next cycle as soon as they are sworn in.
In the 1970’s, Congress started trying to better regulate campaign finances. In 1974, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act, which was supposed to bring transparency about who was donating to campaigns and how the money was being spent. The following year, the Federal Election Commision was established. The FEC is an independent agency that is supposed to monitor and enforce campaign finance laws. It is worth noting that the year after that, 1976, in Buckley v Valero, the Supreme Court struck down the limits on what a candidate can contribute to their own campaign, while maintaining what other individuals can contribute to that candidate. The effect of this was that independently wealthy people have an advantage when it comes to having money to spend on their campaigns.
Almost immediately, political groups started to find loopholes in the campaign finance laws. One of these was the creation of PACs, or political action committees which could funnel an additional $5,000 to individuals running. This is considered “soft money” since it is donated to a general political party or group rather than an individual candidate, and wasn’t subject to the same regulation and transparency. In 2002, there was a bipartisan law passed intending to crack down on this type of spending as well as reduce the number of attack ads on television by forcing ads to display who paid for it and whether or not it was officially endorsed by a candidate. This bill, The Campaign Reform Act, is also sometimes referred to as the McCain-Feingold Act; named for the two senators who sponsored it. This act limited individual donations to PACs to $25,000. Still, almost immediately, groups started to find new ways to inject their money into candidates and their campaigns. One of the work-arounds was something called 527 groups, which was a tax exempt group that was allowed to raise unlimited money for political activities so long as their financial dealings are available to the IRS and they don’t endorse a specific candidate. Another group, called 501cs, are also tax exempt and are labeled as social welfare groups. Half of your activity needs to be unrelated to politics, but this is hard to track and enforce. Donations do not have to be disclosed unless they are used specifically for a political ad. This basically allows companies or other organizations to donate large sums of untraceable money, sometimes referred to as “dark money.”
Since 2010, dark money in politics is more common as a result of the Supreme Court case Citizens United vs FEC. The case ruled that campaign spending by corporations, and labor unions is a protected form of free speech under the First Amendment. This 5-4 ruling was fairly controversial and opened the door for big money to donate to all kinds of PACs and SuperPACs under different names rather than to a specific candidate. However, most of the PACS clearly supported one political party or the other, so it wasn’t really unknown which candidates the money would eventually go to. Even a decade later, the role of money in elections remains a contentious issue, with many candidates refusing to accept money from PACs. Some have argued that while the Court ruled spending money on campaigns is the same as free speech, the practical outcome is that individuals or corporate interests that have more money have a louder voice than those who do not.
To recap……
Since the 1970’s there has been interest in regulating campaign contributions and finances. While there are no spending limits on a campaign, there are several laws in place designed to try to limit individual contributions. However, PACs and other tax exempt organizations often find loopholes in the regulation, and thus there are always new ways to spend money on campaigns.
Coming up next on the Apsolute RecAP US Government Edition: Role of the Media
Today’s Question of the day is about campaign contribution limits.
Question: According to a 2018 Pew Research survey, what percent of Americans “think there should be limits on the amount of money individuals and organizations’ can spend?”