Campaign finance reform has a broad history in America. In particular, campaign finance has developed extensively in the past forty years, as the courts have attempted to create federal elections that best sustain the ideals of a representative democracy. In the most recent Supreme Court decision concerning campaign finance, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court essentially decided to treat corporations like individuals by allowing corporations to spend money on federal elections through unlimited independent expenditures. In order to understand how the Supreme Court justified this decision, however, the history of campaign finance in regards to individuals must be examined. At the crux of these campaign finance laws is the balancing of two democratic ideals: the ability of individuals to exercise their right to free speech, and the avoidance of corrupt practices by contributors and candidates. An examination of these ideals, as well as the effectiveness of the current campaign finance system in upholding these ideas, will provide a basic framework for the decision of Citizens United v. FEC.
Though campaign finance laws deal primarily with limitations on money expenditures, campaign finance is dealt with as a first amendment issue. Though it was argued in Buckley v. Valeo (which will be discussed in detail later on) that campaign donations should be considered conduct, comparable to burning a draft card, rather than speech. The Court claimed, however, that spending money makes communication possible. Often, this communication involves speech alone, not conduct. Furthermore, the Court recognized that virtually every means of communicating ideas requires money, pointing to several examples, such as the pr...
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... outweigh this potential (but not proven) appearance of corruption. The real potential for corruption is related to direct contributions. However, the Court has imposed checks on this aspect of elections. It seems that any proposed system, even the current one, could be targeted as allowing for corruption, or for a disproportionate influence, or for a limitation on free speech. The important thing, therefore, is that the courts balance all these potential harms for the sake of protecting the democratic process and the First Amendment. The current system places checks in the areas where corruption is the most likely, and allows for the most expression in the areas where corruption is minimal at best. This gives citizens the great ability to influence elections and critically discuss candidates, while ensuring that politicians are accountable for their actions.
In January of 2010, the United States Supreme Court, in the spirit of free speech absolutism, issued its landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, marking a radical shift in campaign finance law. This ruling—or what some rightfully deem a display of judicial activism on the part of the Roberts Court and what President Obama warned would “open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in…elections” —effectively and surreptitiously overturned Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and portions of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, struck down the corporate spending limits imposed by Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, and extended free speech rights to corporations. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief historical overview of campaign finance law in the United States, outline the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, and to examine the post-Citizens United political landscape.
The Federal Election Campaign Act, despite being backed by 75 percent of House Republicans, and 41 percent of Senate Republicans, caused immense controversy in Washington. Senator James Buckley sued the secretary of the senate Frances Valeo on the Constitutionality of FECA. In the end, the court upheld the law's contribution limits, presidential public financing program, and disclosure provisions. But they removed limits on spending, including independent expenditures, which is money spent by individuals or outside groups independent of campaigns. This shaped most major campaign financing rulings, including Citizen’s United.
The current use of soft money in the US Governmental elections is phenomenal. The majority of candidates funding comes from soft money donations. Congress has attempted to close these funding loop holes; however they have had little success. Soft money violates standards set by congress by utilizing the loop hole found in the Federal Election Commission’s laws of Federal Campaigns. This practice of campaign funding should be eliminated from all governmental elections.
If you have ever seen the 435 congressional districts on a map you would probably think to yourself that it resembles something similar to one giant jigsaw puzzle. These districts vary in size and certainly in shape. Unlike how county lines are decided within states, the congressional districts change every ten years after the Census is released. Why do they have to change exactly? Well, the answer to that question receives the same frustrating answer heard again and again: It’s politics. The official name for the act of changing congressional lines to benefit a political party is “gerrymandering.” It has been the cause of many debates as well as many negative effects. Gerrymandering has had an unfair advantage in politics throughout history, as it has tarnished the system and should be changed.
The Supreme Court of the United States articulated this point in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, commonly referred to as plain “Citizens United”, in the majority opinion. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his majority opinion, wrote that “If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech,” (Kennedy). Basically, he is saying that if free speech means anything, it must apply to the case of campaign contributions. Where Citizens United failed, however, was its cap on independent expenditures that corporations could make. It let corporations influence elections but limited money spent. SpeechNow.org v. FEC solved that issue. It ruled against the cap of donations on Super PACs (Forget Citizens United). In conjunction with the Citizens United decision, Super PACs were finally able to use their free speech. This paved a path for free speech in the election
Campaign finance refers to all funds raised to help increase candidates, political parties, or policy attempts and public votes. When it comes to political parties, generous organizations, and political action groups in the United States are used to collect money toward keep campaigns alive. Campaign finance always has problems when it comes to these involvements. These involvements include donating to candidate, parties and other political organization. Matthew J. Streb stated “instead of placing further restrictions on campaign donations to candidates, parties, and other political organizations, we should consider eliminating contribution restrictions entirely (Rethinking American Electoral Democracy)”. In other words, instead of allowing
In the United States, healthcare fraud and abuse are significant factor associated with increasing health care costs. It is estimated that federal government spends billions of dollars on the health care cost (Edwards & DeHaven, 2009). Despite the seriousness of fraud and abuse offenses, increasing numbers of healthcare providers are seeking new and more profitable ways to build business relationships. These relationships include hospital mergers, hospital-physician joint ventures, and different types of hospital-affiliated physician networks to cover the rising cost of health care (Showalter, 2007, p 111-114). When these types of arrangements are made, legal issues surrounding the relationship often raise. There are five important Federal fraud and abuse laws that apply to the relationship and to physicians are the False Claims Act (FCA), the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS), the Physician Self-Referral Law (Stark law), the Exclusion Authorities, and the Civil Monetary Penalties Law (CMPL) and (Office of Inspector General (OIG), 2010). Out of five most important laws that apply to the relationship and the physicians, we are going to focus on the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the Physician Self-Referral Law (Stark law).
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act brought the most significant changes to financial regulation in the United States since the reform that followed the Great Depression. It made changes in the American financial regulatory environment that affect all federal financial regulatory agencies and almost every part of the nation’s financial services industry. Like Glass-Steagall, the legislation passed after the Great Depression, it sought to regulate the financial markets and make another economic crisis less likely. Banks were deregulated in 1999 by the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act and essentially allowed for the excessive risk taken on by banks that caused the most recent financial crisis. The Financial Stability Oversight Council was established through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and was created to address the systemic risks in the United States financial system and to improve coordination among financial regulators.
While an imbalance has always been prevalent in the classes of American society, recent decisions in the Supreme Court favoring less campaign finance control have disregarded the growing gap between the upper echelon and the lower class. The U.S. Supreme Court has fully given way to elitist rule, allowing the wealthy to wield their natural tenacities to grow dollar bills from rocks and plant them kindly into the pockets of political candidates that would support their hidden agendas of clandestine rule and continued hegemonification of the lower class. As recent as April 2, 2014 in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme court released the contribution limits placed on the wealthy under the pretense of free speech as provided by the first amendment. In order to prevent further dissemination to the balance of equality amongst the classes within the United States, it is imperative for Congress to start the implementation of a detailed Constitutional Amendment defining strict regulations regarding funding towards political campaigns, as well as a clear definition to the inherent differences between an individual and a corporate entity or “faction.”
At the basis of the campaign finance reform movement is the belief that everyone should have an equal say in the government, and that wealthy individuals or special interest groups should not be able to manipulate the system through excessive contributions to unduly influence elections. The more expensive it becomes to finance a campaign, the more important the money becomes, and subsequently the less involved the candidate becomes in listening to the "voices of the average Americans." The Federal Election Commission, established in 1974, was the first independent institution created to monitor and enforce the campaign finance reforms that were designed to limit [individual or corporate] contributions that would disproportionately influence a federal election. The Commission also tries to ensure that the campaign finance information is accessible to the public, because "disclosure…is the single greatest check on the excesses of campaign finance," (Sabato).
People always tell you that there are two subjects never to bring up at a dinner party, one is religion and the other is politics. Why is that? It is because both subjects invoke very strong emotions. Rather than saying something inappropriate, most people avoid talking about religion altogether. But get those same people in a room and ask their political opinions, that is a different story. For many reasons, people are vocal about their political beliefs (Bentz, 2013). Unfortunately, individuals will judge people by their political beliefs first, without notice to other important aspects of their lives. And that is the reason that politics is not brought up in dinner parties.
December of 2010, in a five to four vote, it was decided that corporate funding of independants in in elections was protected under the first Amendment. This opened the floodgate for the 2012 elections as the candidates took to many platforms to raise money for their campaigns. Mitt Romney along with the help of Spencer Zwick raised 6.5 million dollars simply through a call-a-thon. The secret weapon in this call-a-thon was a program called ComMITT. This program allowed the user to solicit donations from contacts in their email, and online social networking sites. Any donation made fed directly back into the campaign, giving a real-time tally of pledges. With all of this information, one can make a decision for or against campaign finance contributions. Personally, I have conflicting feelings about limitations on campaign finance. I feel as though there should not be a limit for campaign finance contributions, but there should be more qualifications for becoming president. I do not believe there should be a limit on campaign finance because technically it is covered under freedom of speech. It is covered under freedom of speech. This is because giving money is showing
Many people argue that the legislative branch is run by few big interest groups because of their massive contributions against very small contributions from individuals. In a democratic society, power must be shared equally among its citizens, but is that the case in the United States? The answer is simply no, and by limiting their overall spending on elections, policymakers will listen and pay more attention to the public interest over the special interest. Also, by revealing the freeloaders’ names, people will have more knowledge of who is representing them and who has tended to benefit those who made contributions to their campaigns. Finally, prohibiting the spending on food, entertainment and gifts to legislative branch employee will also reduce the corruption in the legislative
The issue of campaign financing has been discussed for a long time. Running for office especially a higher office is not a cheap event. Candidates must spend much for hiring staff, renting office space, buying ads etc. Where does the money come from? It cannot officially come from corporations or national banks because that has been forbidden since 1907 by Congress. So if the candidate is not extremely rich himself the funding must come from donations from individuals, party committees, and PACs. PACs are political action committees, which raise funds from different sources and can be set up by corporations, labor unions or other organizations. In 1974, the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) requires full disclosure of any federal campaign contributions and expenditures and limits contributions to all federal candidates and political committees influencing federal elections. In 1976 the case Buckley v. Valeo upheld the contribution limits as a measure against bribery. But the Court did not rule against limits on independent expenditures, support which is not coordinated with the candidate. In the newest development, the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission ruling from April 2014 the supreme court struck down the aggregate limits on the amount an individual may contribute during a two-year period to all federal candidates, parties and political action committees combined. Striking down the restrictions on campaign funding creates a shift in influence and power in politics and therefore endangers democracy. Unlimited campaign funding increases the influence of few rich people on election and politics. On the other side it diminishes the influence of the majority, ordinary (poor) people, the people.
The theme of this specific TED talk can be categorized as inspirational and persuasive. This talk exposed how a slice of wealthy Americans has managed to take political control over the our voices with the money and time they fund to bring their parties back in power. It was a pleasant and inspirational talk about how we as Americans have the ability to change how politics work. We have the power to bring politics back in the hands of the majority of the citizens.