The Campaign Finance Cases: Buckley, McConnell, Citizens United , and McCutcheon by Melvin I.Urofsky. Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 2020. 248 pp. Paper, $22.95.

2021 ◽  
Vol 136 (3) ◽  
pp. 598-599
Author(s):  
Eric S. Heberlig
Keyword(s):  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Citizens United

scholarly journals Campaign Finance Regulations and Public Policy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
MARTIN GILENS ◽  
SHAWN PATTERSON ◽  
PAVIELLE HAINES
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Independent Expenditures ◽  
American Elections ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Despite a century of efforts to constrain money in American elections, there is little consensus on whether campaign finance regulations make any appreciable difference. Here we take advantage of a change in the campaign finance regulations of half of the U.S. states mandated by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. This exogenously imposed change in the regulation of independent expenditures provides an advance over the identification strategies used in most previous studies. Using a generalized synthetic control method, we find that after Citizens United, states that had previously banned independent corporate expenditures (and thus were “treated” by the decision) adopted more “corporate-friendly” policies on issues with broad effects on corporations’ welfare; we find no evidence of shifts on policies with little or no effect on corporate welfare. We conclude that even relatively narrow changes in campaign finance regulations can have a substantively meaningful influence on government policy making.

Corporations, Unions, And Citizens United

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Mutch
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Finance Law ◽  
Campaign Finance Law

Citizens United undermined more than 100 years of campaign finance law when it gave corporations the First Amendment right to spend money in elections. Congress had said in 1907 that corporations did not have that right; that First Amendment rights were the rights...

Gauging (Perceived) Corruption

2021 ◽  
pp. 45-70
Author(s):  
Daron R. Shaw ◽  
Brian E. Roberts ◽  
Mijeong Baek
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Campaign Spending ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Elected Officials ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Descriptive Data ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Minor Problem ◽  
A Minor

Chapter 3 aims to gauge both the reality of, as well as public opinion on, the central issue of corruption. It investigates public opinion on corruption among elected officials, source of corruption, effectiveness of laws and regulations in mitigating corruption, support for campaign finance reforms, etc. The data strongly suggest that people think corruption is rampant despite limited evidence that quid pro quo corruption is anything more than a minor problem. This fundamental attitude has not changed much in the wake of the Citizens United decision. Furthermore, they believe the problem is mostly intractable and that most of the commonly proposed reforms of the campaign finance system will not work. Nevertheless, they still support these reforms. Moving from simple descriptive data to more associational analyses, this chapter also explores the effect of campaign finance laws on campaign spending and then the effect of both on corruption attitudes. The results are not what the Court would have expected.

Campaign finance legislation and the supply-side of the revolving door

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Simon Weschle
Keyword(s):  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Campaign Spending ◽  
Revolving Door ◽  
Supply Side ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Institutional Factor ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Us States ◽  
The Us

Abstract Existing research on the revolving door examines why employers hire former politicians. I complement this demand-side approach by demonstrating the importance of the supply-side. In particular, I argue that one important institutional factor that shapes politicians' willingness to leave office for a private sector job is campaign finance legislation. Less restrictive rules increase campaign spending for incumbents, which makes revolving door employment less attractive. Empirically, I use novel data from the US states and a difference-in-differences design to show that the exogenous removal of campaign finance legislation through Citizens United reduced the probability that incumbents left office to work as lobbyists. The supply-side approach provides insights into comparative differences in the prevalence of the revolving door.

To Know It Is to Loath It: Perceptions of Campaign Finance and Attitudes About Congress

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 951-969
Author(s):  
Todd Donovan ◽  
Shaun Bowler
Keyword(s):  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Factual Knowledge ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Independent Expenditures

We model attitudes about Congress as structured by perceptions of campaign finance. Attitudes about unlimited corporate and union spending are modeled as structured by knowledge about Congress. We find people with more factual knowledge of Congress were more likely to view unlimited independent corporate and union spending as having improper influence. We also found that people made some distinctions about sources of campaign finance. Knowledgeable people viewed unlimited independent expenditures as improper influence, but were less likely to perceive direct contributions from individuals to candidates as corrupt. When attitudes about Congress are estimated as a function of perceptions about financier influence, we find that perceptions about unlimited independent spending predicted negative views of representation and Congress, whereas perceptions of limited individual donations did not. People who knew the most about Congress were substantially more likely to find unlimited independent spending—the sort allowed by Citizens United—to be troubling.

What Do Americans Know about Campaign Finance?

2021 ◽  
pp. 28-44
Author(s):  
Daron R. Shaw ◽  
Brian E. Roberts ◽  
Mijeong Baek
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Campaign Spending ◽  
The Other ◽  
Regulatory Environment ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
The Public ◽  
The One ◽  
Basic Intuition ◽  
Money In Politics

Chapter 2 establishes a baseline by reviewing public opinion concerning money and politics, pre– and post–Citizens United, focusing on what Americans know about money in politics and campaign spending. On the one hand, given that citizens are typically not well informed about politics, it should come as no surprise that they do not know all that much about candidate spending or campaign finance. On the other hand, the public is not completely off base with respect to its sense of money in politics, and this basic intuition is perhaps even sharper in the post–Citizens United era. The data suggest that while Americans know a little bit about campaign finance, there is no systematic correlation between the regulatory environment of the state and how much people in that state know about campaign finance.

Introduction

Crackup ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Samuel L. Popkin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
White House ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
First Time

In 2016, a businessman so discredited that he could no longer get a casino license or borrow money from an American bank was elected president of the United States of America. How did this happen? It is easy to mock and ridicule Donald Trump as if he is the problem. In fact, he is a symptom of a much larger issue that has been bedeviling the GOP for nearly two decades: an intraparty crackup of massive proportions. “Crackup” here refers to a breakdown of the fragile alliances between coalitions within a party that prevents its leaders from developing goals they can deliver on when they control the White House and majorities in the House and Senate. This introductory chapter explains why party crackups are inevitable in a federal system with national money and local primaries. But this is the first time—for either party—that no group within the party could create a synthesis of old orthodoxies and new realities that altered the party’s direction enough to build a new consensus. The straw that broke the elephant’s back is the unintended—yet predictable—consequence of changes in campaign finance (popularly known as the McCain-Feingold bill) and the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. These changes limited the party of legislative leaders to reach intraparty consensus and bargain with the other party. The combination has stripped the parties of most of their power to enforce any collective responsibility on their legislative colleagues, or upon a president from their own party.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document