All issues · Elections · No. 33
Campaign Finance
Is spending money to influence an election speech, or is it the thing that drowns speech out?
In short
Find your officials →American elections are financed largely by private money, with limits on direct contributions to candidates and few limits on independent spending. The dispute is whether restricting political spending protects democratic equality or suppresses political speech.
The framework rests on a distinction drawn in 1976 and extended since: direct contributions to a candidate can be limited because they risk corruption, while independent expenditures generally cannot, because they are treated as protected speech and are less likely to produce a quid pro quo.
Citizens United v. FEC in 2010 held that corporations and unions may spend unlimited sums on independent political advocacy. A related appellate decision the same year enabled super PACs, which may raise and spend without limit provided they do not coordinate with a campaign.
Disclosure rules vary by vehicle. Super PACs report their donors; certain nonprofit organizations that engage in political advocacy do not, and money routed through them is commonly described as dark money. Both parties make extensive use of these structures.
The Federal Election Commission is designed with an even number of commissioners split between parties, which produces deadlock on contested enforcement questions by design rather than by accident.