Campaign Finance Complexity
Campaign Finance Complexity

Author: Mary Jo McGowan Shepherd

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2018-02-07

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1498535070

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The campaign finance system regulates campaign contributions and behavior with the intent to eliminate corruption or the potential for corruption in elections. With that goal in mind, state legislators created statutes regulating campaign behavior. Each state has wide variation in the complexity of campaign finance regulations. Regulatory systems create a network of rules and regulations and campaign finance is no different. The difference is in the behavior regulated and the potential negative impacts of a complex regulatory system. Candidates running for office must take time and effort to learn and comply with campaign finance regulations to compete in an election. If campaign finance regulations are complex, the time and effort required to learn and comply increases and has the potential to take candidates away from campaigning. This book studies whether states with complex regulations have fewer candidates running for office or more candidates withdrawing their candidacy after starting a campaign. This potentially negative consequence of campaign regulations impacts participation rates for individuals running for office. In a democracy, we desire more candidates in order to maintain a diverse candidate pool, but a complex regulatory system may adversely affect that goal by increasing candidate costs.

Campaign Finance
Campaign Finance

Author: Robert E. Mutch

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-07-01

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0190274719

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In 2015, well over half of the money contributed to the presidential race came from roughly 350 families. The 100 biggest donors gave as much as 2 million small donors combined. Can we still say we live in a democracy if a few hundred rich families provide a disproportionate shares of campaign funds? Congress and the courts are divided on that question, with conservatives saying yes and liberals saying no. The debate is about the most fundamental of political questions: how we define democracy and how we want our democracy to work. The debate may ultimately be about political theory, but in practice it is conducted in terms of laws, regulations, and court decisions about super PACs, 527s, 501(c)(4)s, dark money, small donors, public funding, corporate contributions, the Federal Election Commission, and the IRS. Campaign Finance: What Everyone Needs to Know® explains those laws, regulations, and Supreme Court decisions, from Buckley v. Valeo to Citizens United, asking how they fit into the larger discussion about how we want our democracy to work.

Dollarocracy
Dollarocracy

Author: John Nichols

Publisher: Bold Type Books

Published: 2013-06-11

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1568587112

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Fresh from the first 10 billion election campaign, two award-winning authors show how unbridled campaign spending defines our politics and, failing a dramatic intervention, signals the end of our democracy. Blending vivid reporting from the 2012 campaign trail and deep perspective from decades covering American and international media and politics, political journalist John Nichols and media critic Robert W. McChesney explain how US elections are becoming controlled, predictable enterprises that are managed by a new class of consultants who wield millions of dollars and define our politics as never before. As the money gets bigger -- especially after the Citizens United ruling -- and journalism, a core check and balance on the government, declines, American citizens are in danger of becoming less informed and more open to manipulation. With groundbreaking behind-the-scenes reporting and staggering new research on "the money power," Dollarocracy shows that this new power does not just endanger electoral politics; it is a challenge to the DNA of American democracy itself.

Small Change
Small Change

Author: Raymond J. La Raja

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2008-03-05

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780472050284

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All democracies face the dilemma of how to pay for politics. Money fuels the campaigns that inform and mobilize voters. But private political contributions raise the specter of undue influence, or, worse, political corruption. This book reviews the history of America's efforts at federal campaign finance reform.

Expression Vs. Equality
Expression Vs. Equality

Author: J. Tobin Grant

Publisher: Ohio State University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 0814209653

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In Expression vs. Equality, J. Tobin Grant and Thomas J. Rudolph argue that although public opinion plays a vital role in judicial rulings on the legalities of various finance reform options, political scientists have yet to realize fully the complexities and nuances of public attitudes toward campaign financing. The issue of campaign finance reform exposes a real conflict between the core democratic values of equality and expression. Economic inequalities, reformers argue, allow certain groups and individuals to exert undue influence in the political process, thereby threatening the democratic value of political equality. Opponents tend to frame the issue as a question of free speech: restrictions on campaign contributions are viewed as a threat to the democratic value of political expression. In the context of campaign finance, how do committed Americans rank the importance of equality and expression? How do they resolve the conflict between these competing democratic values? The answers to these questions, say the authors, depend heavily on whose influence and whose rights are perceived to be at stake. Using a series of unique experiments embedded in a national survey of the American electorate, they find that citizens' commitment to the values of expression and equality in the campaign finance system is strongly influenced by their feelings or affect toward those whose rights and influence are perceived to be at stake. Freedom of speech is more highly valued in contexts where the respondent agrees with the issue in question; equity, on the other hand, is more highly valued when the respondent disagrees with the issue. These findings have implications not only for the continuingpublic debate over campaign finance reform, but also for our understanding of how citizens make tradeoffs between competing democratic values.

The Politics Industry
The Politics Industry

Author: Katherine M. Gehl

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2020-06-23

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 1633699242

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Leading political innovation activist Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter bring fresh perspective, deep scholarship, and a real and actionable solution, Final Five Voting, to the grand challenge of our broken political and democratic system. Final Five Voting has already been adopted in Alaska and is being advanced in states across the country. The truth is, the American political system is working exactly how it is designed to work, and it isn't designed or optimized today to work for us—for ordinary citizens. Most people believe that our political system is a public institution with high-minded principles and impartial rules derived from the Constitution. In reality, it has become a private industry dominated by a textbook duopoly—the Democrats and the Republicans—and plagued and perverted by unhealthy competition between the players. Tragically, it has therefore become incapable of delivering solutions to America's key economic and social challenges. In fact, there's virtually no connection between our political leaders solving problems and getting reelected. In The Politics Industry, business leader and path-breaking political innovator Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter take a radical new approach. They ingeniously apply the tools of business analysis—and Porter's distinctive Five Forces framework—to show how the political system functions just as every other competitive industry does, and how the duopoly has led to the devastating outcomes we see today. Using this competition lens, Gehl and Porter identify the most powerful lever for change—a strategy comprised of a clear set of choices in two key areas: how our elections work and how we make our laws. Their bracing assessment and practical recommendations cut through the endless debate about various proposed fixes, such as term limits and campaign finance reform. The result: true political innovation. The Politics Industry is an original and completely nonpartisan guide that will open your eyes to the true dynamics and profound challenges of the American political system and provide real solutions for reshaping the system for the benefit of all. THE INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL INNOVATION The authors will donate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Institute for Political Innovation.

Inside the Campaign Finance Battle
Inside the Campaign Finance Battle

Author: Anthony Corrado

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2004-05-26

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 9780815715849

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In 2002 Congress enacted the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), the first major revision of federal campaign finance law in a generation. In March 2001, after a fiercely contested and highly divisive seven-year partisan legislative battle, the Senate passed S. 27, known as the McCain-Feingold legislation. The House responded by passing H.R. 2356, companion legislation known as Shays-Meehan, in February 2002. The Senate then approved the House-passed version, and President George W. Bush signed BCRA into law on March 27, 2002, stating that the bill had "flaws" but overall "improves the current system of financing for federal campaigns." The Reform Act was taken to court within hours of the President's signature. Dozens of interest groups and lawmakers who had opposed passage of the Act in Congress lodged complaints that challenged the constitutionality of virtually every aspect of the new law. Following review by a special three-judge panel, the case is expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003. This litigation constitutes the most important campaign finance case since the Supreme Court issued its decision in Buckley v. Valeo more than twenty-five years ago. The testimony, submitted by some of the country's most knowledgeable political scientists and most experienced politicians, constitutes an invaluable body of knowledge about the complexities of campaign finance and the role of money in our political system. Unfortunately, only the lawyers, political scientists, and practitioners actually involved in the litigation have seen most of this writing—until now. Ins ide the Campaign Finance Battle makes key testimony in this historic case available to a general readership, in the process shedding new light on campaign finance practices central to the congressional debate on the reform act and to the landmark litigation challenging its constitutionality.

Costs of Democracy
Costs of Democracy

Author: Devesh Kapur

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-06-13

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 019909313X

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One of the most troubling critiques of contemporary democracy is the inability of representative governments to regulate the deluge of money in politics. If it is impossible to conceive of democracies without elections, it is equally impractical to imagine elections without money. Costs of Democracy is an exhaustive, ground-breaking study of money in Indian politics that opens readers’ eyes to the opaque and enigmatic ways in which money flows through the political veins of the world’s largest democracy. Through original, in-depth investigation—drawing from extensive fieldwork on political campaigns, pioneering surveys, and innovative data analysis—the contributors in this volume uncover the institutional and regulatory contexts governing the torrent of money in politics; the sources of political finance; the reasons for such large spending; and how money flows, influences, and interacts with different tiers of government. The book raises uncomfortable questions about whether the flood of money risks washing away electoral democracy itself.

Better Parties, Better Government
Better Parties, Better Government

Author: Peter J. Wallison

Publisher: A E I Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780844742700

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Offers advice to improve the campaign finance system in the United States, and describes the benefits of lifting the restrictions on what political parties can spend in support of their candidates.