Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Election Campaign Financing Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers

Election Campaign Financing Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers Election Campaign Financing Chris AlibaruhoBA 243 Topic Report When researching for this paper, I found that the general consensus showedthat special interest financing is a growing influence on the outcomes of elections inrespect to election campaign financing. As you will see I have identified the problemsand then proceed to discuss possible reforms with use of a pro and con method. The first of the main problems in the issue of campaign financing are theindependent expenditures. According to the Federal Election Committee (FEC), anindependent expenditure is an expenditure of money for communications expresslyadvocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified federal candidate which is notmade with the cooperation or consent of, or at the request or suggestion of, anycandidate or any of his or her agents or authorized committees.In other words, they are political expenditures or expenditures frequently made to payfor television and radio advertisements, press conferences, political rallies byindividual s, groups, or parties seeking to promote a specific message about issues orcandidates during an election season. These expenditures have the potential to affectthe outcome of the race because they imply which candidate is the best withoutdirectly telling voters which candidate to choose. Although they are independentbecause they are produced without consulting the candidate or his campaign, peoplecriticize them for having the same negative impact as direct contributions. This is whyindependent expenditures can be seen as a problem. The second area that needs to be tackled in the issue of campaign financing issoft money. Also referred to as nonfederal funds or sewer money, soft moneyrefers to campaign money raised and/or spent outside the limitations and prohibitionsof the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). According to the FEC, soft moneyoften includes corporate and treasury funds as well as individual contributions inexcess of federal limits. These cannot be legally used in conn ection with federalelections (elections for the US Senate, US House of Representatives, presidency andvice presidency.) The first assumption of todays campaign finance laws is thatpeople, not organizations, are vulnerable to the potentially corrosive influence ofpolitical money. The second assumption is that state and local political parties andtheir grass roots activities are valuable features of our civil culture that the federalgovernment should not interfere with. This explains why most federal election lawsdo not cover contributions that support state and local nonfederal parties. Private money is raised by national parties to support state party organizationsand does not benefit specific people running for federal offices. Therefore, it is neitheruncommon or illegal for parties to raise as much as $1,000,000 from individuals andorganizations, some of which are banned from contributing directly to candidates.This is one of the many loopholes found in campaign financing. For exa mple, thefederal government is permitted only to regulate the way in which campaigns forfederal offices are financed. It is left up to the individual states and municipalities todetermine how campaigns for the state legislature, governor, and local public officesare to be financed and how state and local political parties are to be regulated. Here isthe loophole; national political parties can establish nonfederal accounts to supportstate and local political activities. These accounts are not regulated by federalcampaign finance laws because technically they have nothing to do with federalelections. Many soft money critics point out that candidates, contributors and otherspecial interests can technically obey the letter of the law, but by using soft moneyto get around the contribution and spending limits, they violate the spirit of thesame law. The last of the issues I shall be dealing with in my essay are the issues ofout-of-district distributions and out-of-state distributions. An out-of-state orout-of-district distribution is one of those terms that tries to capture a lot ofinformation in as few words as possible therefore omitting the important details aboutthe whole concept. After some research, it became apparent that out-of-districtcontributions refer to money donated to the House of Representatives and PACsresiding outside the district in which the candidate is running. There are 435 Housedistricts in the United States, therefore an out-of-district contribution refers to anycontribution made to a House candidate by a person living in any of the other 434districts. An out-of-state contribution refers to money donated to a candidate for theUnited States Senate by individuals and PACs residing outside the state in which thecandidate is running. Of course there