1 / 14

Parties and Campaign Finance

Parties and Campaign Finance. What role do parties play in these campaigns?. Candidates hire partisan professionals to run campaigns In most races, the candidate is on her own In competitive races, the party can spend a lot of money not always the way the candidate would like

uri
Download Presentation

Parties and Campaign Finance

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Parties and Campaign Finance

  2. What role do parties play in these campaigns? • Candidates hire partisan professionals to run campaigns • In most races, the candidate is on her own • In competitive races, the party can spend a lot of money • not always the way the candidate would like • Campaign finance laws favor candidate-centered system

  3. Campaign Finance Restrictions on party spending • Contributions to candidates • Coordinated spending with candidate • Independent expenditures in favor of candidate • Voter mobilization

  4. Limits on party spending

  5. Limits on how parties can raise money • National party committees can receive • $15,000 from PACs per calendar year • $25,000 from individuals per calendar year • State party committees (that deal with federal elections) can receive • $10,000 from an individual • Party units can transfer unlimited amounts between themselves

  6. Soft Money • Unregulated contributions TO state parties • State parties used to be able to use soft money for “party building” activities for federal elections • “Issue ads” allowed • What was so bad? • federal candidates helped raise it • issue ads advocated for candidates

  7. McCain-FeingoldBipartisan Campaign Reform Act • National parties can only raise money in regulated amounts (Hard money) • State parties have to fund activities related to federal elections with hard money (mostly) • All “electioneering communications” aired within 60 days of a federal election (or 30 days of a caucus/primary/convention) must be paid for with “hard” money • Parties can’t make both coordinated and independent expenditures. Have to choose.

  8. Effects of McCain-Feingold (BCRA) • Strange bedfellows in debate • Raises the importance of hard money

  9. Advantages of BCRA, 2004?

  10. Effects of reforms on parties? • Reduce importance to candidates • 527 organizations

  11. Top Ten Democratic 527s in 2004

  12. Top Ten Republican 527s, 2004

  13. The Shadow Campaign

  14. How do these quasi-party organizations affect election outcomes? From democracy’s point of view, who should be in charge of campaign messages: the candidates, the parties, or anybody with a videocamera or a few million dollars?

More Related