Research Paper Political Science
The effects of the SuperPACs is something Americans are hearing more and more about in the 2016 campaign. Do Americans have a good understanding of what SuperPACs are and how they can affect the Presidential election.? This is something that needs to be discussed. As Americans, don’t we have the right to know who is financing the elections? These are only a few of the questions many people should be asking themselves.
The history of the government attempting to reform or suppress candidate donations for the office of presidency goes further back than you may think. In 1971, Congress passed the Federal Elections Campaign Act (FECA). This was important because it was to set limits on the amount of money campaigns could spend on advertisement and mandated the reporting of the source of funds to the federal government (Magleby, Light, & Nemacheck, 2015, p. 249). According to Magleby, after the major scandal of Watergate, Congress made stricter laws regarding limitations on spending and contributions of the candidates. Congress created the Federal Elections Commission (FEC); accordingly, the responsibilities of the FEC are to inforce the laws set forth by the FECA.
Next, in 2002, Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), while President George W. Bush held office (Magleby, Light, & Nemacheck, 2015, p. 250). The BCRA bill was extremely important because individuals were the focal point of campaign contributions along with
Another argument agrees that money increasingly dominates the US electoral process and is the main factor in contributing to a candidate’s success is that candidates who spend more generally win. In 2012, Mitt Romney’s
In recent elections on the congressional level as well as for President we see the growing influences of interest groups in the form of PAC’s and Super PAC’s to back candidates. Super PAC’s can spend an unrestricted amount money to support a certain problems or candidate but cannot donate directly to the campaigns. PAC’s work with campaigns directly reallocating donations to candidates and parties.
In a court case in 2010, Speechnow.org v. Federal Election Commission, the ability to spend virtually limitless money on an election was given under first amendment protection. With this ruling, Political Action Committees, or super PACs, have become tremendously influential when it comes to elections. Unlike regular PACs, these super PACs cannot directly donate any raised money directly to this political candidate. While these parties can not directly donate this raised money, and must be independent of the candidate they support or oppose, there is a huge debate of the unclear line involved with who can be a part of these super PACs. For example, Obama had his Republican challenger and former aides of his office supporting his super PAC.
Super political action committee (PAC) was created in July 2010 based on the outcome of a federal court case ruling “SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission”. Super PAC committees have the right to raise unlimited funds with not stopping in sight. Based on the fact of Super PACs being committee driven, there has been political committees influencing different political bases with money to help move committee agendas.
After the Watergate scandal, Congress attempted to weave out corruption in political campaigns by restricting financial contributions to candidates. Among other things, the law set limits on the amount of money an individual could contribute to a single campaign and it required reporting of contributions above a certain amount. The Federal Election Commission was created to enforce the statute.
The 1970s began a more active era of campaign finance reform. The passing of the Revenue Act of 1971 allows citizens to contribute one dollar to a presidential candidate’s campaign fund by checking a box on their federal income tax returns. Along with the Revenue Act of 1971, the Federal Election Campaign Act was also passed in 1971. This law institutes disclosure requirements for federal candidates, political parties, and political action committees of donations more than $100. This law also sets a spending limit of $50,000
Limiting independent expenditures is limiting money spent by individuals and groups, such as 527’s and super PACs, for candidates and parties that the individuals and groups are not directly affiliated with. There are many viable arguments in favor of the proposal; one of the strongest arguments in favor is that the most affluent groups and people should not be the most influential groups and people. If there was no limit of independent expenditures, the influence that wealthy individuals and groups have over elected officials would be potentially magnified. Thus, as long as there are restrictions on the amount of money that individuals and groups may expend in support of candidates and parties, the influence of the preponderance of the population is closer to being equal.
In other words, Super PACs gives a voice to people with money. All corporations that have money to give, are giving millions and millions of dollars to the candidates across the board. Independent voters don't have that money to donate, so their
In this essay I will be discussing the affect interest groups have on relationship between Congress and Special Interest Groups. Interest groups are made of people that share a common interest and try to influence public policy to benefit themselves.There are several categories and subcategories of these groups that play a huge role in giving a voice to the citizens of this country. There are many weakness in our system giving these groups the ability to impact policy making to boosting a candidate for office. With the amount of power given to interest groups there comes a question as to whether or not their influence affects the legitimacy of the American legislative process.
The current network of campaign finance is a complicated web involving individual contributors, soft money and hard money, and political action committee influence. In the aftermath of the crooked Watergate scandal, anxiety over campaign finance led to the passage of two major reform bills—the Revenue Act of 1971 and the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974—that have set the guidelines and regulations for campaign finance. Although many other laws and acts have been passed in effort to regulate campaign finance, these two acts set the main standards for campaign finance regulation. The main ideas of the acts stipulate that candidates for the two houses of Congress receive no public funding, candidates in the presidential primaries receive matching dollars, and candidates
The Fair Elections Now Act was introduced by Senator Durbin of Illinois in February 2014, and it would change the way Congressional candidates can finance their elections. The Act stipulates that qualified Congressional candidates would earn grants, matching funds, and television vouchers based on a minimum amount of small-dollar contributions from their local community (Durbin, 2015). This bill has still not been adopted, or accepted into law. This type of campaign finance reform is needed for Presidential elections as well.
The Supreme Court also sited in that same ruling that, “In a free society by our Constitution, it is not the government, but the people-individually as citizens and candidates and collectively as associations and political committees-who must retain control over the quantity and range of debate on public issues in a political campaign” (Keena 6). While it may be a violation of freedom of speech to limit television ads, many of today’s candidates have made a mockery of the existing legislature regarding campaign financing. Ex-president Bill Clinton bent the rules and laws more than possibly any elected official ever, and certainly farther than anyone since Richard Nixon. Thad Cochran, a veteran Republican senator from Mississippi, stated, “Clinton used his own party and had it operated out of the campaign office, which was the White House, to coordinate expenditures by the Democratic Party and his election campaign in an unlimited amount, using soft money to pay for the ads, with his own chief-of-staff making the decisions about the kind of advertising, and Clinton himself was involved in writing some of the ads that were actually run by the Democratic Party using soft money” (Williams 10). No elected official had ever gone so far as to run soft money ads out of his own office, let alone rewrite the ads himself. It is cases such as this one that are prime examples for why there is such a need for new laws to govern campaign financing.
The issue of campaign financing was argued again more recently in the Supreme Court case, Citizens United v FEC. In this case the Citizens United conservative non-profit argued that an ad for the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 was critical of George Bush and therefore the commercial was a campaigning ad funded by an outside group within sixty days of the general election. Citizens United argued the ad was illegal according to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) passed in 2002 that stated no electioneering committee could fund an ad 60 days before an election. Citizens United believed Fahrenheit 9/11 was critical of Bush’s response to 9/11 and therefore was an ad for the opposing candidate Al Gore. The Supreme Court decided that if a company wants to use their money to campaign, since money is an expression of speech, there cannot be any law limiting when you can express your views politically. The court determined that the portions of FECA and BCRA related to restrictions on corporate and labor union spending was unconstitutional as it prohibited free speech. Citizens United reaffirmed the president set by Buckley vs. Valeo that money is
Rather than government providing millions of dollars for the campaign and putting harsh restricts on individual donations, I believe that the limits should not be put on the American people but on the candidates themselves. Spending on the campaign has gotten out of control within the last decade. Millions of taxpayer dollars are being spend on mobile campaigns, advertisements, and media exposure. This funding could easily go towards other areas of society, benefiting the very people that the candidates wish to govern. Rather than directing negative attention, I believe that candidates should reach out to the public to gain support. Campaigning for presidency should not be about winning or who raises the most money. Presidency should be about protecting and caring for the American people. The conduct of campaigns should be monitored in order to limit spending and to prevent negative advertising towards opposite candidates.
The political action committees (PAC) are interest groups that accumulate contributions and construct ways to raise money from individuals and/or businesses. Once the PAC has the funds, they must determine what candidates will receive the contributions, the percentage, and establish when it will be most beneficial to the candidates. The political candidate that appears to be more in favor with current politicians, committees, policies, and often with the public are more likely to receive the larger percentage of the contributions. The candidates’ popularity should increase once they have been endorsed with the financial backing.