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Campaigns, Congress, and Courts presents a political history of the passage, judicial interpretation, and administration of federal campaign finance law from 1907 to the present. The volume focuses on the post-Watergate years and analyzes the ideological and partisan conflicts which shape congressional and public debate over how, or whether, to regulate political money. The book opens with an account of the first law, then moves to the Watergate period while explaining the background of the 1970's reforms. Subsequent chapters examine the origin and passage of legislation through case studies, focusing on congressional debates and roll call votes; analyze the arguments of reformers and their opponents in court battles over these laws; demonstrate how the press and public opinion effect the legislative climate; assess the creation of the Federal Election Commission, its quasi-judicial role, and the political cross pressures to which it is subject; and explain the rise of labor and business PACs.
How the Supreme Court is influenced by national electoral politics, which in turn affects the Court, is the focus of this sweeping study by a leading constitutional scholar. Stephenson demythologizes the Court as an impartial adjudicating institution "above politics."
This book provides an analytical guide to the modern political campaign, chronologically covering key federal, state, and local campaign laws, election commission rules, and the court decisions interpreting them. While the media and the public tend to focus on the personalities and foibles of the candidates and the horse-race elements of political campaigns, election outcomes often depend as much on the rules that limit candidates' activities and advertising as on the candidates' platforms and personal appeal. How much money may candidates raise? From whom can they accept money? When and how may they spend their campaign funds? What are they allowed to say in their ads? Informed voters who understand the constraints under which campaigns operate can see past the headlines and the hype to assess the quality of the candidates' campaign decisions and their management skills. The approximately 100 documents gathered in this reference guide put the essential information in readers' hands. After introducing 18th- and 19th-century efforts to regulate American election campaigns, this book examines the 20th-century evolution and refinement of election campaign laws in era-by-era chapters and concludes with a chapter on 21st-century developments. Each chapter opens with a short essay highlighting politically relevant historical events of the era to place the subject matter in context.
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.
Money greases the wheels of American politics from the local level to the White House. In the 2004 presidential campaign, President George W. Bush alone raised nearly $400 million in private and public funds—nearly twenty times the combined total raised by John Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960—to defeat challenger John F. Kerry, further fueling anxiety over the power of money to dictate political results. Melvin Urofsky, one of our nation's most respected legal historians, takes a fresh look at efforts to rein in campaign spending and counter efforts in the courts to preserve the status quo. He offers a thoughtful and balanced overview of campaign finance reform and the legal responses to it, from the Progressive era through the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in McConnell v. FEC (2003) and its impact on the 2004 election. Urofsky focuses especially on the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act and 2002 McCain-Feingold or Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), and on challenges to both in the Supreme Court. In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Court upheld contribution limits but struck down expenditure caps on First Amendment grounds. In McConnell it upheld the key provisions of McCain-Feingold. In both cases, however, opponents argued that congressional control of campaign financing was an unconstitutional infringement of the free speech rights of campaign contributors. Urofsky deftly steers the reader through this contentious and complex history, revealing how both Congress and the courts have navigated uneasily between the Scylla of potential corruption and the Charybdis of suppressing political speech. Ironically, despite the Court's decision upholding McCain-Feingold, the 2004 presidential election was the most expensive in history—because, as Urofsky notes, money is the mother's milk of politics and both candidates and donors will always find ways to keep it flowing. His book provides an excellent and succinct guide to the controversies and historical debates emerging from that fact.
In Congressional Elections: Campaigning at Home and in Washington author Paul Herrnson combines top-notch research with real-world politics as he argues that successful candidates run two campaigns: one for votes, the other for resources. Using campaign finance data, original survey research, and hundreds of interviews with candidates and political insiders, Herrnson looks at how this dual strategy affects who wins and how it ultimately shapes the entire electoral system. The Seventh Edition considers the impact of the Internet and social media on campaigning; the growing influence of interest groups in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling; and the influence of new voting methods on candidate, party, and voter mobilization tactics.
Campaigns, Congress, and Courts presents a political history of the passage, judicial interpretation, and administration of federal campaign finance law from 1907 to the present. The volume focuses on the post-Watergate years and analyzes the ideological and partisan conflicts which shape congressional and public debate over how, or whether, to regulate political money. The book opens with an account of the first law, then moves to the Watergate period while explaining the background of the 1970's reforms. Subsequent chapters examine the origin and passage of legislation through case studies, focusing on congressional debates and roll call votes; analyze the arguments of reformers and their opponents in court battles over these laws; demonstrate how the press and public opinion effect the legislative climate; assess the creation of the Federal Election Commission, its quasi-judicial role, and the political cross pressures to which it is subject; and explain the rise of labor and business PACs.
Nothing embodied Franklin D. Roosevelt’s campaign to lastingly embed the New Deal in the major institutions of American government more than his effort to pack the Supreme Court. Vaulting Ambition, the inaugural volume in the Landmark Presidential Decisions series, presents a balanced assessment of FDR’s 1937 effort to fundamentally change the highest court in the land. Unlike most work on the subject, Michael Nelson centers his study on the president’s series of decisions to reform the Court, rather than on the Court’s responses. At the heart of the book is an analytical narrative of FDR’s crusade to expand the Court and pack it with those sympathetic to his cause. While keeping this story front and center, Vaulting Ambition also presents the Court-packing effort as part of FDR’s larger campaign to shape the executive branch bureaucracy, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Democratic Party all in service to enduringly entrench the New Deal into US government and politics. Although FDR never achieved the mastery over the entire federal government that he sought, his efforts to expand and transform the three branches of government and the Democratic Party were of great consequence and endured long beyond his tenure. Nelson offers a clear understanding of how FDR’s campaign sheds essential light on today’s raging controversy over changing the Supreme Court.