How do Presidential Candidates Get All that Money?

                                                         Source: BrennanCenter.org

My research question to help me study the economic principle is, what are current campaign finance laws and regulations?

The Campaign Finance Institute which compiles research and legislation to act as a source of reference for current and past campaign finance law demonstrates by outlining what the current laws for campaign financing are today and how they have changed in the last 18 years.

 First, it is important to know the current campaign finance laws in the United States for Presidential elections. Currently, candidates must disclose the amount and name of the donor for all campaign contributions, in order to minimize the influence a single donor could have on a candidate by having this transparency. Another factor that helps limit one donor being able to use their money to influence a candidate is the contribution limit of $2.700 per individual donor. Local, National and State committees can only give $5,000 per election and PACS are limited to $5,000 contributions as well.

 Second, it is important to understand one of the major pitfalls of current campaign finance law, donations of ‘hard money’ and ‘soft money’ donations. Hard money donations are those that fall under control of the Federal Election Committee, who are able to punish donors who break financing laws with ‘hard money’. A loophole in current campaign finance policy is soft money contributions. Campaign Finance Law does not set limits of contributions designated for ‘party building activities’. Because of this section of the law, soft money donations can find influence in campaigns as they could be used to build the party through ad campaigns for a specific candidate.

 Third, there have been many changes in Campaign Finance Laws since the early 2000s. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 was one of the biggest steps taken by Congress to regulate campaign financing. This law attempted to weaken the influence contributors have by setting individual donor limits and banning soft money contributions from being used in elections as the contributions cannot be fully regulated. However, a Supreme Court decision in 2010 which enabled the usage of soft money contributions and the ability of SuperPACS to receive an influx of donations that legally are not required to be regulated. These changes have led to the newfound problem of how the government can monitor campaign financing without violating the Constitution

 In my next blog post I will research the question: What are current controversies surrounding campaign finance?