{"id":12326,"date":"2019-05-21T13:45:33","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T17:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/articles\/george-washington-to-citizens-united-a-history-of-campaign-finance-reform\/"},"modified":"2019-05-21T13:45:33","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T17:45:33","slug":"george-washington-a-citizens-united-una-historia-de-reforma-del-financiamiento-de-campanas","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/es\/articles\/george-washington-to-citizens-united-a-history-of-campaign-finance-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"De George Washington a Citizens United: Una historia de reforma de la financiaci\u00f3n de campa\u00f1as"},"template":"","class_list":["post-12326","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry","article_type-blog-post"],"acf":{"details":{"summary":"First in a series of articles looking at the past, present, and future of campaign finance reform, originally posted at The Well News.","featured_image":4529,"article_type":1103,"authors":["{\"site_id\":\"1\",\"post_type\":\"person\",\"post_id\":12327}","{\"site_id\":\"1\",\"post_type\":\"person\",\"post_id\":12328}"],"related_issues":[137,2082],"related_work":false,"location":null},"sidebar":{"helper_enable_sidebar":false,"helper_media_contact":{"heading":"Media Contact","manually_enter_person":false,"person":null,"name":"","role":"","phone":"","email":""},"helper_links_downloads":{"heading":"Links & Downloads","links":null}},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"Democracy Wire welcomes and thanks guest writer Dan McCue<\/a> and The Well News<\/a>, where this article was originally posted.<\/strong><\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nFrom the very beginning of the Republic, campaign finance has been a hard subject to discuss in polite company.\r\n\r\nIn a capitalist society, things, including access to whatever serves as the public megaphone of the era, simply cost money.\r\n\r\nAnd in a Democracy where almost everyone, regardless of where they start off economically, is told they too can someday hold public office, the need to communicate one\u2019s attributes to the electorate makes soliciting political contributions an absolute necessity.\r\n\r\nMoney doesn\u2019t necessarily buy votes, but it does confer a sense of electability. Contributions signal support, and in doing so it attracts more support, becoming self-fulfilling.\r\n\r\nYet, as retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter once observed, \u201cmost people assume \u2014 I do, certainly \u2014 that someone making an extraordinarily large contribution is going to get some kind of an extraordinary return for it.\u201d\r\n\r\nSouter called this assumption \u201cpervasive\u201d and went on to say \u201cthere is certainly an appearance of, call it an attenuated corruption, if you will, that large contributors are simply going to get better service, whatever that service may be, from a politician than the average contributor, let alone no contributor.\u201d\r\n\r\nThat belief has long been at the heart of efforts to change the involvement of money in politics. The money-in-politics regulatory regime isn\u2019t just intended to rein in potentially unscrupulous behavior; it is also intended to level the playing field for candidates and contributors alike.\r\n\r\nIt is also the reason why, as we stand at the opening of the 2020 presidential contest that nearly every candidate is claiming to be supported by small donors and therefore immune from the ills of big money in politics.\r\n\r\nBut as the first rounds of campaign finance disclosure statements have made clear, the reality of funding a viable presidential campaign in the 21st century is a lot more nuanced.\r\n\r\nWhile small donors are contributing an unprecedented share of the money raised by candidates, the lifeblood of many campaigns remains infusions of cash from big donors and bundlers who can tap their personal networks of wealthy friends.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s largely due to a front-loaded primary schedule that will see the enormously costly Super Tuesday \u2014 when voters in 12 states, including California, will decide their preferred candidates \u2014 come just a month after the Iowa caucuses.\r\n\r\nWhile there\u2019s nothing wrong with these donations \u2014 the identity of anyone donating over $200 is publicly disclosed in Federal Election Commission filings \u2014 the demands of the presidential contest, and how the candidates and their supporters respond to them, are sure to reignite concerns over the role money plays in politics.\r\n\r\nAnd as history has shown, while reformers and good government advocates have achieved some significant victories in the area of campaign finance reform over the years, deep-pocketed interests have often found ways to chip away at those gains \u2014 sometimes even being aided and abetted by the U.S. Supreme Court.\r\n\r\nThis was Justice Souter\u2019s constant concern before his retirement from the High Court in June 2009.\r\n\r\nHe summed up those concerns in his dissent in\u00a0Federal Election Commission (FEC) v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc.<\/i>, a case in which a majority of justices held that so-called \u201cissue ads\u201d that don\u2019t explicitly endorse a particular candidate are not equivalent to contributions under the law.\r\n\r\n\u201cNeither Congress\u2019s decisions nor our own have understood the corrupting influence of money in politics as being limited to outright bribery or discrete quid pro quo,\u201d Souter wrote.\r\n\r\n\u201c[C]ampaign finance reform has instead consistently focused on the more pervasive distortion of electoral institutions by concentrated wealth, on the special access and guaranteed favor that sap the representative integrity of American government and defy public confidence in its institutions.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe Early Days<\/b>\r\n\r\nConcerns over the influence of money on politics precede the founding of the Republic. None other than George Washington himself was accused of exploiting his relative personal wealth to secure support for his successful bid for a seat in Virginia\u2019s House of Burgesses in 1757.\r\n\r\nAlthough tales about Washington\u2019s early life often prove apocryphal, legend has it the father of our country plied voters with wine and hard cider and fancy meals to secure their support. Washington won the election, and the House of Burgesses, evidently hearing tales of its newest member\u2019s exploits, almost immediately passed an act prohibiting candidates from exchanging food and drink or other rewards for a vote.\r\n\r\nDespite longstanding concern about the influence of money on politics, the first federal campaign finance law wasn\u2019t passed by Congress until 1867. The Naval Appropriations Bill adopted that year prohibited Navy officers and government employees from soliciting campaign contributions from Navy yard workers.\r\n\r\nSixteen years later, those protected were extended to all federal civil service workers with the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883.\r\n\r\nBut campaign finance reform didn\u2019t really take off as an issue until 1904, when President Theodore Roosevelt was confronted with allegations that corporations had bought influence by making contributions to his re-election campaign.\r\n\r\nIn fact, Roosevelt had successfully raised over $2 million in contributions from bankers and industrialists during the campaign, the old \u201ctrust buster\u201d contending it was perfectly okay for a campaign to accept large contributions so long as there was no implied obligation on the part of the candidate.\r\n\r\nHowever, Roosevelt\u2019s position changed profoundly when whispers of a quid pro quo deal threatened to erupt into a full-blown scandal. The president stood accused of trading the nomination of E.H. Harriman, a railroad executive, to the French ambassadorship in return for $200,000 in business contributions.\r\n\r\nUnable to silence his critics, Roosevelt used his 1905 State of the Union address to propose that Congress outlaw \u201ccontributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose.\u201d\r\n\r\nRoosevelt declared \u201cthe need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish if Congress provided an appropriation ample enough to meet the necessity for thorough organization and machinery, which requires a large expenditure of money.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe also said that any candidates who accept public funds should be required to limit donation amounts and to publicly disclose what they\u2019ve received.\r\n\r\nInstead, Congress responded by passing the Tillman Act of 1907, banning corporate gifts to federal candidates.\r\n\r\nWhile Roosevelt signed the bill into law later that year, it was lacking in two respects: it placed no restriction on campaign contributions from the private individuals who owned corporations and it lacked any provisions for enforcement.\r\n\r\nIn 1910, Congress again turned to campaign finance reform, passing the so-called Publicity Act, which required the treasurer of political committees to reveal the names of all contributors of $100 or more.\r\n\r\nIn 1925, Congress expanded those disclosure rules further with the Federal Corrupt Practice Act, which required political committees to report total contributions and expenditures, and set spending limits on all congressional candidates. Those spending limits were ultimately struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case\u00a0Burroughs v. United States<\/i>, but in the same ruling the justices held that Congress had the prerogative to \u201cpass appropriate legislation to safeguard an election from the improper use of money to influence the result.\u201d\r\n\r\nSlowly, the reforms Teddy Roosevelt sought after his own hardships were coming to pass. But it was during and immediately after the administration of his fifth cousin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, that campaign finance reform efforts took a major turn.\r\n\r\nThe next changes to campaign finance law rode in on a wave of anti-unionism in the 1930s and early 1940s. The War Labor Disputes Act, legislation passed in 1943, and also known as the Smith-Connally Act, temporarily prohibited unions from making contributions in federal elections.\r\n\r\nIn 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act made this wartime measure permanent. However, the law had an unanticipated consequence \u2014 it effectively ushered in the era of \u201csoft money.\u201d\r\n\r\nBelieving their political influence had been compromised by the successive laws, unions and trade associations began creating Political Action Committees. \u00a0Because they were technically not labor organizations, these PACs could contribute cash to candidates within existing guidelines.\r\n\r\nSignificantly, the new political action committees did not have to comply with the spending and advertising laws that already applied to political candidates.\r\n\r\nAs a result, they could effectively spend whatever they wanted to support their preferred candidates and the issues they cared about. And they could do all of this without contributing anything directly to a political campaign.\r\n\r\nThe Modern Era<\/b>\r\n\r\nThings got serious again in 1971, when Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act, which went into great detail in defining how candidates had to disclose sources of campaign contributions and campaign expenditures. Among the Act\u2019s most notable restrictions was a $50,000 spending cap on television advertising.\r\n\r\nLike the Tillman Act, however, the new law failed to include a critical provision on enforcement. Lawmakers returned to FECA in the post-Watergate fall of 1974, creating the Federal Election Commission \u2014 the agency that continues to enforce campaign finance law to this day.\r\n\r\nBut the 1974 amendments went a step further, limiting individual donations to $1,000 and donations by political action committees to $5,000.\r\n\r\nCongress didn\u2019t have long to bask in its high-mindedness, however.\r\n\r\nIn 1976, Senator James Buckley, R-N.Y. challenged the limits on campaign spending, arguing \u2014 all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court \u2014 that such limits violated his free speech rights.\r\n\r\nThe Supreme Court agreed, handing down a ruling in\u00a0Buckley v. Valeo<\/i>\u00a0that is now seen as laying the legal foundation for Citizens United v. FEC, a case that would dramatically alter the campaign finance landscape 34 years later.\r\n\r\nIn their ruling, the majority on the court held that restrictions on campaign spending \u201climit political expression at the core of our electoral process and of the First Amendment freedoms.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe ruling also struck down limits on independent spending by PACs and others not coordinated with a candidate\u2019s campaign and on expenditures of candidates\u2019 personal funds.\r\n\r\nCongress responded to the ruling in 1976, by establishing new contribution limits and repealing expenditure limits, except in the case of candidates who accept public funding.\r\n\r\nThese changes have had some interesting consequences. In 1996, for instance, Senator Bob Dole, the eventual Republican nominee accepted federal funds for the primary contest and agreed to abide by contribution limits set by the FEC.\r\n\r\nThe problem was, the Dole campaign spent liberally during the primary and he ran out of money long before his party\u2019s convention that summer.\r\n\r\nAlthough Dole recovered his funding footing for the general election he eventually lost to incumbent Democratic President Bill Clinton, his experience has informed campaign strategies ever since.\r\n\r\nIn subsequent races, George W. Bush, John Kerry and Howard Dean all opted out of public funding for their primary bids, and candidate Barack Obama declined all public funding for his successful bid for the presidency in 2008.\r\n\r\nIn doing so, Obama argued that accepting public money and the contribution limits that come with it would have crippled his ability to respond to attacks from tax-exempt advocacy organizations \u2014 known as 527 groups \u2014 whom he said were spending tens of millions of dollars to ruin his reputation.\r\n\r\nThe New Century<\/b>\r\n\r\nPerhaps the biggest, bipartisan effort to level the campaign finance playing field came in 2002, when members on both sides of the aisle in Congress came together to support the appropriately named Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, more commonly known as the McCain-Feingold Act.\r\n\r\nIn announcing his sponsorship of the bill, Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., explained that \u201cthe people who I serve believe that the means by which I came to office corrupt me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat shames me,\u201d he said. \u201cTheir contempt is a stain upon my honor, and I cannot live with it.\u201d\r\n\r\nMcCain-Feingold sought to restrict the unlimited soft money donations ushered in after the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act and to separate issue advocacy from candidate advocacy.\r\n\r\nThe Act regulated issue advocacy by creating a new term in federal election law, \u201celectioneering communications\u201d\u2014 political advertisements that refer to a clearly identified federal candidate and are broadcast within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election.\r\n\r\nThe act also prohibited unions and certain corporations from spending treasury funds for such \u201celectioneering communications.\u201d\r\n\r\nHowever, several provisions of McCain-Feingold were challenged less than a year after it was enacted, and the Supreme Court struck many of them down.\r\n\r\nIn\u00a0FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc.<\/i>, a 2007 case, a divided Supreme Court said Congress had gone too far in its restrictions on \u201celectioneering\u201d communications.\r\n\r\nThe law also said corporate and labor money cannot be used to fund such advertisements.\r\n\r\nBut in a 5-4 decision, the justices ruled the law was unconstitutional when it came to advertisements that did not expressly advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate.\r\n\r\nCitizens United<\/b>\r\n\r\nThat ruling opened the door to\u00a0Citizens United v. FEC<\/i>, the 2010 case that continues to impact elections and roil discussions of campaign finance reform to this day.\r\n\r\nWriting for the majority in the 5-4 decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that McCain-Feingold\u2019s prohibition of all independent expenditures by corporations and unions violated the First Amendment\u2019s protection of free speech.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech,\u201d Kennedy wrote.\r\n\r\nHe also noted that since the First Amendment does not distinguish between media and other corporations, the McCain-Feingold restrictions could, in theory, allow Congress to suppress political speech in newspapers, books, television and on the internet.\r\n\r\nThe court\u2019s ruling freed corporations and unions to spend money both on \u201celectioneering communications\u201d and to directly advocate for the election or defeat of candidates, although it still maintained that such expenditure must be \u201cindependent,\u201d and made without coordination with the candidate or his campaign.\r\n\r\nThe immediate impact of the ruling \u00a0\u2014 and a related decision in a second case,\u00a0SpeechNow.org et. al. v. FEC<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 was that it led to the creation of super PACs, entities that can accept unlimited donations and use the funds mostly on political advertising, and nonprofits that are allowed to spend a portion of their revenue on political engagement but are not required to reveal their donors.\r\n\r\nSpeechNow<\/i>\u00a0struck down federal contribution limits to independent expenditure committees.\r\n\r\nIt found that the high court\u2019s analysis in\u00a0Citizens United<\/i>\u00a0required the lower court to conclude that \u201cthe government has no anti-corruption interest in limiting contributions to an independent expenditure group.\u201d\r\n\r\nJustice John Paul Stevens, who retired shortly after the ruling was handed down, said in a dissent that the high court\u2019s ruling \u201cthreatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.\u201d\r\n\r\nSenator McCain was more succinct in his response to the ruling. \u00a0\u201cCampaign finance reform is dead,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nIn the wake of\u00a0Citizen\u2019s United<\/i>, Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman, Republican donor, and conservative activist, sued the Federal Elections Commission, challenging \u201caggregate contribution limits\u201d that had been in place since 1971.\r\n\r\nThe cap, imposed under the Federal Election Campaign Act, limited the contributions an individual could make over a two-year period to national party and federal candidate committees.\r\n\r\nMcCutcheon, who had contributed a total of about $33,000 to 16 candidates for federal office in the 2012 election cycle, said he had wanted to give $1,776 each to 12 more but was prevented from doing so by the overall cap for individuals.\r\n\r\nHe was eventually joined as a plaintiff in the case by the Republican National Committee.\r\n\r\nIn a 5-4 decision handed down in April 2014, the court\u2019s conservative members largely echoed their positions in\u00a0Citizens United<\/i>.\r\n\r\nChief Justice John Roberts, writing for four justices in the controlling opinion, said the overall limits could not survive First Amendment scrutiny. \u201cThere is no right in our democracy more basic,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthan the right to participate in electing our political leaders.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn a separate, concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that all limits on contributions were unconstitutional.\r\n\r\nIn a dissent from the bench, Justice Stephen Breyer slammed the majority opinion, calling it a disturbing development that raised the overall contribution ceiling to \u201cthe number infinity.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf the court in\u00a0Citizens United<\/i>\u00a0opened a door \u2026 today\u2019s decision may well open a floodgate,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nIn a written dissent in which he was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, Breyer said in light of the court\u2019s decision in McCutcheon<\/i>\u00a0\u201ca single individual\u201d would be allowed \u201cto contribute millions of dollars to a political party or to a candidate\u2019s campaign.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut in an\u00a0op-ed<\/a>\u00a0that appeared in The New York Times shortly after the ruling, Stanford University law professor Nathaniel Persily said that while he could understand Breyer\u2019s apocalyptic fears, the reality is, \u201cthe floodgates were already thrown open by Citizens United and other decisions that allowed for unlimited expenditures by individuals, unions, corporations, super PACs and virtually every other actor in the campaign finance system.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhile the potential effects of the court\u2019s decision in McCutcheon should not be overstated, the court\u2019s ruling does hold promise to restore the balance between insiders (parties and candidates) and outsiders (corporations, unions, super PACs and other nonparty groups),\u201d Persily wrote.\r\n\r\n\u201cBecause the court reaffirms the value of forcing disclosure of contributions to candidates and parties, at least with respect to contributors like Mr. McCutcheon, we will know where the money is coming from, where it is going, and how politicians behave once they receive it,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe only question now is how to redirect the river of money flowing into politics toward the destinations most beneficial to our democracy.\u201d\r\n
<\/h5>\r\nSee also: <\/strong>\r\n