Campaign Finance

• What was passed in 2002 that introduced campaign finance limits?

  Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act called the McCain Feingold reforms
• What did the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act do?

  • Banned party committees from raising ‘soft money’.
  • Reforms required candidates to verbally endorse all advertising and stopped corporations advertising for candidates up to 60 days before the election
  • the reform banned donations from foreign nationals
• What happened in 2010 regarding campaign finance?

  Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission (FEC) Supreme Court case gave businesses the right to the unlimited financing of presidential campaigns
• What are Political action committees (PACs)?

  Organisations that spend limited money on supporting a candidate’s election or defeating a candidate they oppose
• What are Super PACs?

  Organisations that spend unlimited money on supporting or opposing a candidate but do not directly fund the candidate
• What was passed in 1974 regarding campaign finance?

  Federal Election Campaign Act
• What did the Federal Election Campaign Act 197 do?

  Limited the contributions that could be made by businesses and individuals but had a number of problems:

  1. ‘Soft money’ was donated to parties rather than candidates to get round finance campaign limits
  2. The Federal Election Commission had little power to enforce punishments against candidates who broke the rules