Campaign Finance Reform in The United States

Campaign Finance Reform In The United States

Campaign finance reform is the common term for the political effort in the United States to change the involvement of money in politics, primarily in political campaigns.

Although attempts to regulate campaign finance by legislation date back to 1867, the first successful attempts nationally to regulate and enforce campaign finance originated in the 1970s. The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1972 required candidates to disclose sources of campaign contributions and campaign expenditures. It was amended in 1974 with the introduction of statutory limits on contributions, and creation of the Federal Election Commission (FEC). It attempted to restrict the influence of wealthy individuals by limiting individual donations to $1,000 and donations by political action committees (PACs) to $5,000. These specific election donations are known as ‘hard money.’ The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, also known as "McCain-Feingold", after its sponsors, is the most recent major federal law on campaign finance, which revised some of the legal limits on expenditures set in 1974, and prohibited unregulated contributions (commonly referred to as "soft money") to national political parties. ‘Soft money’ also refers to funds spent by independent organizations that do not specifically advocate the election or defeat of candidates, and funds which are not contributed directly to candidate campaigns.

In early 2010, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited pursuant to the right of these entities to free speech.

Read more about Campaign Finance Reform In The United States:  Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission

Famous quotes containing the words united states, campaign, finance, reform, united and/or states:

    Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.
    Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)

    Dianne’s not one of the boys, but she’s not one of the girls, either.
    Marcia Smolens, U.S. political campaign aide. As quoted in Dianne Feinstein, ch. 15, by Jerry Roberts (1994)

    A bank is a confidence trick. If you put up the right signs, the wizards of finance themselves will come in and ask you to take their money.
    Christina Stead (1902–1983)

    It is doubtless wise, when a reform is introduced, to try to persuade the British public that it is not a reform at all; but appearances must be kept up to some extent at least.
    George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

    The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.
    Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)

    So the brother in black offers to these United States the source of courage that endures, and laughter.
    Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)