Product Description: Special-interest money is destroying our democratic process. But now that the Citizens United decision has thrown out campaign spending limits as abridgments of free speech, Americans want to know what they can do about it. Derek Cressman gives us the tools, both intellectual and tactical, to fight back...read more

For those who assume that increased regulation of political spending is inevitable in democratic nations, recent developments in U.S. campaign finance law appear puzzling. Is deregulation, exemplified by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, a harbinger of things to come elsewhere or further evidence that the United States remains an anomaly?In this volume, experts on the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, Sweden, France, and several other European nations explore what deregulation means in the context of political campaigns and demonstrate how such comparisons can inform the study of campaign finance in the U.S. Whereas the contributors do not settle on any single theory of change in campaign finance law or any single perspective on the relationship between changes seen in the U.S. and those in other nations over the past decade, they do concur that the U.S. is rapidly retreating from the types of regulations that defined campaign finance law in most democratic nations during the latter decades of the twentieth century. By tracing and analyzing the recent history of regulation, the contributors shed light on many pressing topics, including the relationship between public opinion and campaign finance law, the role of scandals in inspiring reform, and the changing incentives of political parties, interest groups, and the courts.

Recent federal court activity has dramatically changed the regulatory environment of campaign finance in the United States. Since 2010, the judiciary has decided that corporations and labor unions may freely spend in American elections, and that so-called "Super PACs" can accept unlimited contributions from private citizens for the purpose of buying election advertising. Despite the potential for such unregulated contributions to dramatically alter the conduct of campaigns, little is known about where Super PACs get their money, where they spend it, or how their message compares with other political groups. Moreover, we know almost nothing about whether individual citizens even notice Super PACs, or whether they distinguish between Super PAC activity and political activity by other political groups. This book addresses those questions. Using campaign finance data, election returns, advertising archives, a public opinion survey, and survey experiments, Super PAC! provides unprecedented insight into the behavior of these organizations, and how they affect public opinion and voting behavior. The first in-depth exploration of the topic, this book will make significant contributions in both political science and applied policy.

As of the latest national elections, it costs approximately $1 billion to become president, $10 million to become a Senator, and $1 million to become a Member of the House. High-priced campaigns, an elite class of donors and spenders, superPACs, and increasing corporate political power have become the new normal in American politics. In Capitalism v. Democracy, Timothy Kuhner explains how these conditions have corrupted American democracy, turning it into a system of rule that favors the wealthy and marginalizes ordinary citizens. Kuhner maintains that these conditions have corrupted capitalism as well, routing economic competition through political channels and allowing politically powerful companies to evade market forces. The Supreme Court has brought about both forms of corruption by striking down campaign finance reforms that limited the role of money in politics. Exposing the extreme economic worldview that pollutes constitutional interpretation, Kuhner shows how the Court became the architect of American plutocracy. Capitalism v. Democracy offers the key to understanding why corporations are now citizens, money is political speech, limits on corporate spending are a form of censorship, democracy is a free market, and political equality and democratic integrity are unconstitutional constraints on money in politics. Supreme Court opinions have dictated these conditions in the name of the Constitution, as though the Constitution itself required the privatization of democracy. Kuhner explores the reasons behind these opinions, reveals that they form a blueprint for free market democracy, and demonstrates that this design corrupts both politics and markets. He argues that nothing short of a constitutional amendment can set the necessary boundaries between capitalism and democracy.

Product Description: In the 1918 Michigan race for the U.S. Senate, auto tycoon Henry Ford faced off against a less well-known industrialist, Truman Newberry. Bent on countering Ford's fame and endorsement from President Wilson, Newberry's campaign spent an extravagant amount, in fact much more than the law seemed to allow...read more

Product Description: Virtually all democracies struggle with the question of how to finance election campaigns. Although politicians often propose campaign finance reforms as a means of gaining short-term advantage over their opponents, campaign finance laws can be evaluated with reference to broader democratic goals, including the prevention of corruption, encouraging competitive elections and voter choice, enabling citizens and citizen groups to provide information to politicians, and promoting political and economic equality...read more

Product Description: In a five-to-four ruling, the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC invalidated two provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). It struck down the long-standing prohibition on corporations using their general treasury funds to make independent expenditures...read more

Product Description: Should funding of political campaigns be regulated or just go to the highest bidder or those who can raise the largest amount of funds on the internet or from private sources? This work examines these issues.

Product Description: During the 109th Congress, 51 bills were introduced to change the nation's campaign finance laws (primarily under Titles 2 and 26 of the U.S. Code). These bills - 43 in the House and 8 in the Senate - sought to change the current system, including tightening perceived loopholes...read more

The most original, the most sought-after politician in America today, Senator John McCain is at the front of a large movement -- people who are dissatisfied with the way politics is conducted in this country. They are eager for change, and McCain's independence and his vigorous leadership have inspired them. Granted unique access to the Senator and his closest aides, prizewinning journalist Elizabeth Drew offers a close-up, fascinating account of Senator McCain as he goes about the legislative business of achieving campaign finance reform, his signature issue, building coalitions, and working across party lines. As she shows him in action, McCain is revealed as a shrewd and long-sighted strategist, someone who works with his colleagues far more successfully than his image might suggest. We see this original mind at work and get new insights into his complex personality. Drew also shows how McCain has broadened his agenda, putting him at a pivotal place in American political life. In this riveting narrative, replete with McCain's unusual candor, and his unorthodox ways, we see how this war hero turned political leader is showing the public -- and cynical Washington insiders -- that there are other ways to go about working for the public good.

Reformers lament that, with every effort to regulate the sources of campaign funding, candidates creatively circumvent the new legislation. But in fact, political fundraisers don't need to look for loopholes because, as Raymond J. La Raja proves, legislators intentionally design regulations to gain advantage over their partisan rivals. La Raja traces the history of the U.S. campaign finance system from the late nineteenth century through the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002. Then, using the 2004 presidential election as a case study, he compares the ways in which Democrats and Republicans adapted their national fund-raising and campaigning strategies to satisfy BCRA regulations. Drawing upon this wealth of historical and recent evidence, he concludes with recommendations for reforming campaign finance in ways that promote fair competition among candidates and guarantee their accountability to voters.Small Change offers an engaging account of campaign finance reforms' contradictory history; it is a must-read for anyone concerned about influence of money on democratic elections.

Product Description: This new edition assembles the scholarship of some of the most prominent critics and supporters of jurisprudence on the U.S. Constitution and campaign finance. Contributors include academics, juddges, reform advocates and practitioners, including Columbia law professor Richard Briffault, Chicago law professor Case R...read more

Product Description: At first glance, campaign finance reform looks like a good idea. McCain-Feingold, for instance, regulates campaigns by prohibiting national political parties from accepting soft money contributions from corporations, labor unions, and wealthy individuals...read more

Product Description: The Twenty-First Century Left: Cognitions in the Constitution and Why Buckley Is Wrong applies the richest possible theoretical framework to the American Constitution.For the first time ever, a constitutional analysis focuses on the cognitive forms of the constitution's key provisions and the cognitive forms of key constitutional cases...read more

These groundbreaking studies, rich with data, include chapters on: _

'Comprehensive exposition of federal campaign finance law and administration following the enactment, consitutional defense, and implementation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (McCain-Feingold)'--Provided by publisher.

Product Description: This volume deals with questions of political party funding and campaign financing, issues which arouse controversy in many parts of the world. How are the central actors in the political arena supposed to gather the funds necessary to operate effectively on behalf of their chosen political ends? And, how may they spend money in furtherance of their political objectives? This book explores these issues in the specific context of a number of national settings...read more

Product Description: 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...read more

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (formerly known as McCain-Feingold) is the most important federal campaign finance law in decades. Whether the law will achieve its intended purposes, what it will mean for the parties and interest groups, and how it will affect elections--all are hotly contested issues in news columns and courtroom depositions. This book is the first serious and dispassionate attempt to think about the effect of this law since it was passed. It presents the research and early conclusions of political scientists who were brought together by the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute to think about how the new law is--and is not--likely to change politics. The authors do not share a common political outlook, or even a common perspective about campaign finance reform. What they do share are reputations for being among the country's best scholars of money and politics. This is a book that students and practitioners of politics will not want to miss, especially in view of the recent Supreme Court decision.

(view table of contents)