Party Funding and Campaign Finance Law in the United States
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Description
From the comparative perspective, the regulation of party funding in the United States has three features that, at least in combination, set it apart from the rest of the world. First, any governmental measures to control the expenditure of what is termed campaign finance in the United States is constrained by a constitutional regime that looks sceptically on any state activity that constrains political expression, even indirectly. The comparatively strong freedom of expression guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution creates a rights overlay to the campaign finance field that severely limits any attempt to regulate or restrict campaign spending. Second, elections in the United States are privately funded. The lack of any comprehensive public funding scheme is likely due in part to a historic reluctance on the part of the American public to finance political parties, something that operates even independently of the difficulty that regulators have found in trying to limit private expenditures against the constitutional guarantees in the First Amendment. The American Constitution shows its age in distinct ways. One is that, unlike more recent constitutions, the American version does not affirmatively provide a role for political parties. Indeed, the Framers of the American Constitution thought parties to be a form of what they termed “faction”, an organisation of sectional interests presumptively hostile to the public good. Third, the United States has more elected state officials than probably any other nation on earth. The deep-seated populist commitment to accountability of multiple low-level public officials to the electorate translates into elections for positions that would be filled administratively in any other democracy. The litany is large, but among the more conspicuous are elections for state court judges and school boards. Since these candidates typically run in a single constituency, without the benefit of a proportionally selected slate, their ability to rise above the herd to get elected requires an ability to raise money independently to get elected. These three features contribute to great pressure to raise money for contested elections and a tough legal environment in which to regulate the funding of politics and political expenditures. Congress and state legislatures have made several attempts to control the role of money in political campaigns, but have consistently seen their legislative enactments hollowed out by a Supreme Court highly sceptical of any intrusion into the free expression of political ideas. This overview is meant to serve as an introduction to the development of campaign finance law in the United States. It begins with a description of the foundations of campaign finance regulation and then explores the subsequent treatment by the Supreme Court, concluding with the current state of the law.
Source Publication
Supervising Electoral Processes
Source Editors/Authors
European Commission for Democracy Through Law
Publication Date
2010
Recommended Citation
Issacharoff, Samuel, "Party Funding and Campaign Finance Law in the United States" (2010). Faculty Chapters. 931.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/931
