Stand By Your Ad Provision - Purpose and Origins

Purpose and Origins

Attack ads that criticize an opponent's political platform quickly rose to popularity in United States since the 1960s. In more recent times these ads became increasingly ad hominem attacks, some of them appearing to be anonymous, that turned off voters. Proponents of the Stand By Your Ad provision, such as Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) who sponsored the provision in the BCRA, advocate that by forcing candidates to associate themselves with their attacks in the ads, voters would be more inclined to punish them for using such a strategy, thus discouraging candidates from campaigning in such a manner.

The earliest roots of the provision can be traced to the 1996 Senate election in Minnesota, where a grassroots movement known as "Minnesota Compact" attempted to combat negative campaigning that was rampant in the state, though what was proposed remained voluntary.

In 1999, the "Stand By Your Ad" provision was brought up again, this time in the 1999 North Carolina General Assembly. The "Campaign Reform Act" S.881 was ratified and signed into state law on 21 July 1999. This required candidates or its campaign committee (in this example, for television ads) to:

Following the perceived success of the "Stand By Your Ad" provision in North Carolina state law in reducing negative campaigning, similar measures were introduced into other state legislatures. Two years later, a bill was introduced in Congress to extend this provision to Federal law. It was eventually absorbed into the BCRA, which addressed the issue of financing of political campaigns, that was signed into law by George W. Bush on March 27, 2002.