Campaign Finance

Campaign Finance

1. Sources

   • Personal Funds
   • Individual Donations
   • PACs and Super PACs
   • Federal Funding
     • 2008 GE - Obama raised huge amounts of money through the internet through small donors, forgo federal matching funds
   • 2012 Source of Funds according to open secrets
     • Obama
       • small individual contributions $233,215,440
         • large indvidual contributions $489,660,089
       • PAC contributions $0
       • Candidate self financing $5000
       • Other $522,529
     • Romney
       • small imdivid. contrib. $79,806,091
         • large imdivid. contrib. $366,336,696
       • PAC $1,076,446
       • self financing $52,500
       • Other $1,643,991

2. FECA

   • 1974 a direct result of the Watergate scandal which brought down President
     • Helping to reduce reliance on 'fat cats'
   • Limits
     • individ contributions to candidate = $1000
     • corporate contributinos to candidate = $5000
     • donations from foreign donors
     • Too many loopholes
       • 1976 Buckley vs. Valeo
         • Infringement of 1st Amendment
   • 2014 McCutcheon vs FEC
     • wants to give more money because he believes in more candidates

3. BCRA

   • 2002 National party committees banned from raising/spending soft money
     • Labour unions
     • Restricted ads 60 days of an election
       • I'm... and I approve this message
     • Increased individual donations to $2000
       • Appearance of 527s in 2004
         • soft money
         • largely unregulated organisations
       • hard money

4. Reform

   • In favour
     • Issues, candidates spend more attention on raising money
     • Elite individ. give unlimited funds to super-pac however no communication between candidate and super-pac
       • soft money should be regulated so super-pacs do not have over-arching control
         • Quid-Pro-Quo
           • log rolling
           • corn for porn
     • Implicit manipulation of interest from elites over interests of nation
       • media group - pro John Kerry had old Kerry members working for them
       • 501cs - DARK MONEY
     • because of laws funding two main parties, there will always be a divide
   • The story of campaign finance is the law of unintended consequence
   • Against
     • Against free speech, Amendment 1
       • Reform is the government saying: There's too much political speech, they know the right amount, should enforce limits they want on political speech
       • Go against codified law to protect people from the government
     • Benefit incumbent legislators
       • pass laws making fundraising more difficult because they want to stay in power
     • Money indispensable for making effective speech
       • decreased political participation