By Annelise Anderson, Hoover Institution Press, May 2000

In this policy primer on campaign finance reform, Annelise Anderson sorts through the rhetoric, congressional hearings, and public debate to describe the current rules and regulations and to prescribe viable options for change.

Current proposals involve increasing the regulation of campaign expenditures, further restricting campaign donations, creating ever-larger bureaucracies, using public funding for federal campaigns, and attempting to limit political speech not only through legislation but also through constitutional amendment.

Download Full Book (Divided PDFs):

• About the Contributors
• Introduction
• If It's Not Broken . . . or Is It?
• Campaign Finance Regulation: Faulty Assumptions and Undemocratic Consequences
• PACs and Parties
• Liberty of the Press under Socialism
• Why Congress Can't Ban Soft Money
• Campaign Finance Reforms and the Presidential Campaign Contributions of Wealthy Capitalist Families
• Where Are We Now? The Current State of Campaign Finance Law
• Political Money: The New Prohibition
• Partial Dissent/Partial Concurrence of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thomas in the Case of the Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee and Douglas Jones, Treasurer, Petitioner v. Federal Election Commission
• Partial Dissent/Partial Concurrence of Chief Justice Burger in the Case of Buckley v. Valeo
• Supreme Court Reconsiders Contribution Limits
• Attempt to Amend the Constitution
• FEC Announces 1996 Presidential Spending Limits, March 15, 1996
• The Doolittle Bill: Citizen Legislature and Political Freedom Act
• S. 25: Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
• Enemies of the First Amendment
• The Money Chase
• Campaign Finance Restrictions Violate the Constitution
• The King's Protection
• Making Pols into Crooks
• Shut Up, They Explained
• Campaign Solution: Lift All Contribution Limits
• Let the Sun Shine In
• Campaign Finance Reforms Don't Work
• Price Controls on Democracy
• The Case for Campaign Reform
• The Man Who Ruined Politics
• Sin Masquerading as Virtue
• Deregulating Politics
• Vote against McCain. Wait, Can I Say That?
• Deregulating Campaign Finance: Solution or Chimera?
• Campaigns Starved for Money
• The Case for Campaign Finance Reform
• The Money Gag
• Representative Democracy versus Corporate Democracy: How Soft Money Erodes the Principle of "One Person, One Vote"
• Index

Book Description

Current proposals involve increasing the regulation of campaign expenditures, further restricting campaign donations, creating ever-larger bureaucracies, using public funding for federal campaigns, and attempting to limit political speech not only through legislation but also through constitutional amendment. Through articles, Supreme Court decisions, speeches, and op-eds, Political Money challenges the view that current proposals are truly an appropriate public policy approach to campaign finance and argues that controls on campaign expenditures and contributions limit freedom of speech; that controls on the use of such resources smack of censorship; that there is no credible evidence that campaign contributions buy votes; and that more rapid and complete public disclosure is critical.

About the Author

Annelise Anderson is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. She has written on a variety of public policy issues and is a former associate director of the federal Office of Management and Budget.

Contributors Floyd Abrams, Michael Patrick Allen, Annelise Anderson, Martin Anderson, Tom Bethell, Phillip Broyles, Bobby R. Burchfield, Warren Burger, John T. Doolittle, Pete Du Pont, Williamson M. Evers, Russell D. Feingold, Steve Forbes, David Frum, Meg Greenfield, Charles Krauthammer, Dan Manatt, Thomas E. Mann, David M. Mason, John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Trevor Potter, Jonathan Rauch, Larry J. Sabato, Robert J. Samuelson, Bradley A. Smith, Frank J. Sorauf, Dane Strother, Clarence Thomas, George F. Will

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