1. Campaign Finance

2. Government Shutdown

3. Campaign Finance Defined
Campaign Finance: All funds raised in order to promote candidates, political parties, or policies in elections, referendums, initiatives, party activities, and party organizations
Basically it’s the process by which candidates and political parties raise money to help promote an issue or get a candidate elected.

4. Where does the money come from?
Individual Contributions: Donations to candidates or political parties from individual citizens.
As the table below demonstrates, the majority of individual contributions come from a select few individuals who give a large amount.

5. Where does the money come from?
Political Action Committees (PACs): A type of organization that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaigns for or against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation.
Super PAC: a type of independent political action committee which may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, and individuals but is NOT permitted to contribute to or coordinate directly with parties or candidates.
527 and 501c4 Groups: a type of U.S. tax exempt organization created to influence the election or defeat of candidates to office. Before the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United V. The FEC (Federal Elections Commission) these groups could not expressly advocate for the election or defeat of a specific candidate, but could only promote an issue. However, after the Supreme Court decision in 2010 these groups can directly advertise on behalf of or against a candidate, but cannot coordinate directly with parties or candidates.

6. What do candidates use the money for?
Campaigns cost a lot of money to run. Everything from hiring people to coordinate and canvass to renting large spaces for rallies, paying to fuel the jet, and T.V. and print advertisements. The costs associated are broken down into 7 categories
Media- 29%
Fundraising- 21%
Salaries- 16%
Administrative- 12%
Unclassifiable- 8%
Strategy & Research- 7%
Campaign Expenses- 7%

7. Federal Elections Commission
In charge of all things elections.
Including:
People registering to file for an election.
Campaign finance.
(Candidates must send out a finance report every quarter)
Monitoring election fraud.

8. FINANCING CONTINUED
Hard Money = clearly regulated, specific and limited
Soft Money = unregulated, unlimited, and usually raised by PACs and Individuals

9. Individual limitations
No one individual can donate more than the following amount in any campaign cycle. (2 years)
HARD MONEY
$2700 to a direct campaign for president, senate, etc. (Donald Trump for President)
$5000 to per year to a PAC
$33,900 to a national party
SOFT MONEY
But unlimited $$ to a Super-Pac

10. Citizens United V FEC
In 2008 Citizens United (an independent corp) wanted to air a film that portrayed Hillary Clinton in a negative way. (Probably because she was for killing babies….)
They were barred from doing so because it was said they did not follow campaign finance laws and their video was directly tied to the campaign.
They sued the FEC stating they were independent from any political campaign and thus not held to campaign finance laws.
The court in a 5-4 decision agreed with them because.
A. Corporations, are a group of people, and thus entitled to the same rights as people.
B. Money is free speech and therefore cannot be regulated by govt.

11. Implications of Citizens United
A. Anyone can donate any money they want to a Super-Pac with little to no regulations.
B. Super-Pacs can spend their money how they please.
C. Money from outside the state is often used to influence elections.
D. Money is king.
(SUPER-PAC Ad)
(Campaign Ad)

12. Why this matters
(Swiftboat Veterans Ad)
People independent from a campaign can influence an election, with no ties to any campaign.
Creates a surplus of Ads.
People can be genuine, but often it just clouds a campaign and makes it more confusing.
(Trump is a Democrat)