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Ineffective reform effort
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Period: to
Campaign Financing
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Yet another ineffective reform effort
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Period: to
PAC's grow
as well as their contributions -
Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA)
•Restricted amount of money that could be spent on ads
•Limited how much groups and individuals could contribute to candidates
•Limited how much candidates and their families could contribute to their own campaigns
•Prevented corporations and labor unions from participating directly in political campaigns, but allowed them to create PAC's
•Required disclosure of all contributions and expenditures more than $100
•Created the Federal Elections Commission to administer and enforce act's provisions -
FECA provision changed
The Supreme Court declared the limit on candidates' spending towards their own campaigns unconstitutional as they are equal with any other person -
Period: to
Public Funding
Presidential campaigns were largely funded by the public purse -
Independent expenditures
The Court says there are two types of independent expenditures. One of them sounding similar to what a 501C4 is "an interest group or contributor wages an 'issue campaign' rather than saying 'vote for this candidate'" -
Soft Money
$463 million raised by parties through soft money -
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold Act)
Soft money conrtibutions get banned at the national level -
Period: to
527 committees
These were groups that also took advantage of campaign-finance laws but eventually became replaced by super PACs -
McConnell vs. FEC
The NRA tries to fight the McCain-Feingold act but the Supreme Court upholds nearly all of the clauses in the act -
Refusing public funding
Leading Democratic and Republican presidential candidates began to refuse public funding for the primaries -
PAC Spending
36% of campaign funds spent on House races came from PAC's -
Supreme Court starts fuckin up
The Supreme Court began to chip away at the limits in the 2002 act. -
Obama
Obama became the first major-party candidate in decades to refuse federal funding for the general election as well -
501c4
501C4's become popular -
Citizens United v. FEC
This court ruling establishes our current wide-open campaign-finance system. Essentially, it's ruined everyhting. -
Super PACs
By 2011 each presidential candidate had a super PAC taking advantage of the system for them -
Soft money contributions
Parties raised $463 million through soft money contributions