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Show Money, Politics and Campaign Reform by Kelly Burton relying on their reputations and personal recommendations to carry them to victory" (1988). Expenditures in these "campaigns" were essentially used for treating voters to food and drink at public gatherings and rallies. This was the case in 1758, when George Washington, then a candidate for the Virginia House of Burgesses, "treated" voters to 160 gallons of rum, beer, and hard cider on election day (Christian 1996, 125). This "genteel system of upper-class politics" began to change in the early 1800s as the right to vote was dramatically expanded. As eligibility grew to include more than just a small percentage of men who owned substantial property, additional funding for the campaign process became necessary. "Campaigns" now needed to reach a larger electorate. In the 1830s, the first popular "mass campaigns" were organized by Martin Van Buren around Andrew Jackson and the Democratic party. Stephen Douglas, during his campaign for the presidency in 1860 was the first to make a nationwide tour promoting his candidacy (Christian 1996, 152). This new style of mass campaigning involved funding for more than the traditional food and liquor expenditures, but expanded to include "advertisements, widespread pamphleteering, organization of rallies, and logistical support" (Mutch 1998, 16). It was the democratization of the election process that created the need for significant campaign spending, and eventually the need for campaign finance reform. The expansion of the right to vote, the inclusion of the "masses" in politics, and the inevitable rise in campaigning costs that resulted was just the beginning of the inevitable entanglement of money and politics. "Beginning with the presidency of Andrew Jackson, nepotism, cronyism, and flagrant corruption became hallmarks of American government. Rock bottom was the administration of Ulysses S. Grant during which major financial scandals involving the Vice-President and several cabinet members were exposed" (Christian 1996, 127) Political expert and author Spencer Christian described the environment that prevailed within politics during much of the 19th century as a "cesspool" (127). Early Campaign Finance Reform It was the outrage of the citizenry and both political parties that initiated reform and resulted in the first laws regulating campaign finance. Professor Bradley A. Smith of Capital University Law School, explained that early campaign laws "were typically limited to minimal disclosure requirements of campaign donations and expenditures" (1995). The first noteworthy legislation for campaign reform was enacted in 1890 by New York State. Among the provisions contained within the legislation, the most prominent were the amounts that candidates for various offices might legally spend and the requiring of candidates to file itemized accounts of campaign expenditures. Any "violations of the law were punishable by imprisonment and loss of office" (Christian 1996, 127-128) The first federal law, passed in 1907, banned some corporate contributions (Smith 1995). Over the next six decades, the federal government passed several laws requiring disclosure of contributions and filing of reports, but these laws did little to curb abuses as they were largely ignored. The Federal Elections Act was passed in 1972, having little effect on abuses. It was the unearthing of significant campaign abuses from the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s that generated the call for campaign financing reform, resulting in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 (Christian 1996, 130). Author Charles Lewis explained that "the country's moral outrage over Watergate resulted in the most significant political reforms in U.S. history" (1996, 8). This amending of previously passed legislation, established strict disclosure requirements for campaign donations, set specific limits for those donations,2 and established the Federal Elections Commission. In addition, for the first time in American history, partial public funding of presidential campaigns was initiated. According to Lewis, "in 1974, presidential campaign money and politics became more accountable to the American people" (1996, 9). In 1976, the United States Supreme Court struck down those provisions of the 1974 legislation that called for mandatory spending limits, stating that they violated the First Amendment. In the case Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1,' the Court stated the following: A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached. This is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money. The Current State of Campaign Finance Reform With the restrictions set forth by the Supreme Court and the clearly partisan nature of the reform process, legislators face a difficult battle. Kent Jenkins Jr. in the article "Showdown over Reform" argues that "each party is trying to position itself as pro-reform, while recommending fund-raising changes that are in its own financial interests" (1997, 30). Both political parties agree that the current system of campaign funding needs reform, but that is where the consensus ends. Reform proposals differ with each party. Many Democrats advocate the following: • Banning or limiting political action committee (PAC) donations. Those provisions that estahlished spending limits, resrricring total spending for all federal races, and even limiting independent spending on their hehalf, were srruck down hy the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo (1976). Additional cases in which the U.S. Supreme Court held acts of Congress unconstitutional under the Firsr Amendment involving "core" political speech/ expression and campaign financing reform were: Federal Election Commission t1. National Conservative Political Committee, 470 U.S. 480 (1985); Federal Election Commission v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, 479 U.S. 238 (1986); Colorado Republican Federal Campari Committee v. Federal Election Commission, 116 S. Ct. 2309(1996). 24 |