A problem intrinsic to democracy is that money talks.  In an election, candidates need to communicate with the voting public.  This communication, more than ever, requires large sums of money.  Over history, rulers and candidates who received support, financial or otherwise, were indebted to their benefactors; quid pro quo and corruption repaid this debt.  This too plagued the American republic.  To combat this flow of capital, influence, and corruption, Congresses have enacted campaign finance regulation laws.

Campaign finance has been an issue even before 1781.  In 1757 George Washington was accused of “spending irregularities” when he bought more than a quart of alcohol per voter as he campaigned for the House of Burgesses (Geraci).  In the 1896 presidential election, an exorbitant sum of money was spent, mainly by William McKinley ($7 million dollars which equates to just under $200 million today) (Geraci).  For as long as there has been money in politics, there have been efforts for regulation.  The first such law was a 1867 ban on candidates seeking contributions from Navy Yard workers (The Federal Election).  The first comprehensive push towards regulation happened during the Progressive Era.  The Tillman Act (1907) banned bank and corporate contributions to federal campaigns.  The Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1910) required federal candidates to disclose contributions and limited their spending.  A series of similar bills were passed through the 1940s but they all shared a common flaw: lack of enforcement.  These reforms were almost always evaded or ignored.

A new wave of legislation was passed in 1971.  The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and the Revenue Act “require disclosure of spending by candidates for federal offices and provides for financing for Presidential campaigns. Required full and timely disclosures, limited some contributions, capped spending, and permitted unions and corporations to form PACs” and “established the public financing system for qualifying presidential candidates paid for by the voluntary $1.00 check off on income tax forms,” respectively (Geraci).  While these were true reforms, they too lacked enforcement.  This became apparent during the Watergate scandal following Nixon’s reelection: his CREEP had taken corporate and corrupt money during the campaign, e.g. $200,000 in a briefcase from I.E. Robert Vesco (Geraci).  Following the scandal, Congress amended FECA several times, the most important of which was the addition of an enforcement body, the Federal Election Commission.  In 2002, Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, aka McCain-Feingold, which prevented unlimited contributions (aka soft money) to political parties and established a “blackout period” before an election in which no ads funded by outside groups were allowed (Geraci).

The Supreme Court has been undoing important campaign finance regulations passed by Congress.  In the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo case, the court overturned parts of FECA and “set two enduring principles of campaign finance law… money equals speech… and ad[s that] avoid[] express advocacy [of a candidate are]n’t regulated” (Overby).  This decision led to an inundation of “soft money” in elections.  McCain-Feingold addressed this decades later, only to be foiled by the Supreme Court once again in the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC case.  This decision, as it will be seen in the following section, led to the scrapping of election finance regulation and resulted in a new age of wealth in politics.

Campaign finance laws play an important role in politics: they prevent corruption and undue influence of a wealthy minority.  While these laws have sought to remedy this problem, their progress has been impeded.  Through lack of enforcement and the Supreme Court overturning much needed legislation, the problem persists.