Campaign finance

“ The American people want to be heard in their political system. If you want to do it, we've got to pass the lobbying bill and we've got to pass this campaign finance reform bill which will pay for equal access through lobbying contributions, control the influence of lobbyists, limit PAC's, and limit campaign spending. ”

“ I want to talk to you this morning about steps I'm taking to open the airwaves so voters have the loudest voice in our democracy, and about responsibility of Congress to clean up the campaign finance system.
Our democracy is the oldest and most successful in the world, but we know that there is something wrong with the way we pay for elections. ”

“ America has had a summer of significant achievement, as we are working to protect our values and prepare our people for the 21st century. The balanced budget shows what we can do when we put aside partisanship and work for the public interest and our children's future. But America can't rest. One of the most important things we can do in the next phase of our progress is to pass long-overdue campaign finance reform. ”

“ We're moving to change politics as usual. The Senate has passed a campaign finance reform bill that gives less influence to political action committees and opens the doors of communication to all candidates. ”

“ Moreover, the underlying issue of how extensively money influences politics is the original sin of everyone who's ever run for office - myself included. In order to get elected, we need to raise vast sums of money by meeting and dealing with people who are disproportionately wealthy. This is a problem that predates George Bush or Jack Abramoff, and I believe that a serious, bipartisan conversation about campaign finance reform is one that this town would do well to have in the months to come. ”

“ I'm sorry, you're saying -- Q Wouldn't that be a major break in the Republican Party if Senator McCain's name would be taken off campaign finance reform just because he wasn't able -- or the President wasn't able to cut a deal with him? MR. MCCLELLAN: Well, again, the President submitted his principles yesterday so that the Congress would know where he stands on campaign finance reform. And we look forward to signing a fair and balanced campaign finance reform that is based on those principles. And so we will work with Congress. ”

“ And the President is closely monitoring campaign finance reform because he wants to get something done this year. And he believes that with a little effort, with a little good work, a little compromise, that campaign finance reform can be signed into law this year. Q Even with the failure of those amendments that he supports, he still thinks that we can get -- MR. FLEISCHER: It's the beginning of the process. Q Will he sign a bill if it doesn't have paycheck protection? MR. FLEISCHER: The President is looking forward to working together to bring people together so he can sign a bill. ”

“ The President has chosen to show his support for it by urging Congress to pass campaign finance reform. And he calls on Congress to pass it once more. Q When you have a policy that tells potential donors, signals to potential donors that they will be thanked in the White House or thanked in the Vice President's office or thanked in a Cabinet secretary's office if they donate money, aren't you using the offices, those offices to raise money? MR. FLEISCHER: No. I think, again, there's a distinction that people understand, and it's a simple distinction. ”

“ Reforms required reporting by “527” nonprofit organizations that promoted candidates but were not campaign committees and focused reporting on committees that raised substantial amounts of funds. 164
In 2002, Congress again tightened spending limits and strengthened disclosure. The main purpose of the McCain-Feingold law (officially, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act) was to close loopholes that allowed candidates and their supporters to use “soft money” to circumvent campaign spending limitations. Soft money refers to funds used to finance issue ads that promote particular candidates. ”

“ Although Morris was initially unaware of the financial condition of Clinton/Gore and the DNC at the time he was pressing for significant advertising expenditures, he learned that the Clinton/Gore Primary Committee was limited to spending approximately $30 million.32 Morris shared Ickes’ concern that the media campaign likely would exceed the $30 million limit placed on the Clinton-Gore Primary Committee.33 Confronted with these funding limitations, Morris searched for alternative methods to finance the President’s re-election campaign. ”

“ The President’s Knowing Subversion of Federal Election Law Clearly, the President and his aides devised a strategy to subvert the spending limits imposed by federal law on presidential candidates who agree to accept public financing. “Soft” money was used for the express purpose of promoting the President’s re-election. As documented elsewhere in this report, the money was raised and spent under the supervision of White House officials.68 The money was spent on ads that were produced by the firm handling the re-election campaign’s ads, ads that the President himself edited and revised. ”

“ The amount of money now needed by the Republican party for running a National campaign is enormous, and constantly increasing. I say “needed,” for as the constituencies have become accustomed to a lavish flow of money in the political market, and as the appetite grows with eating, the baneful evil grows in virulence from election to election. ”

“ In this very election campaign it has been the common talk how the protected interests and their affiliations—such as some of the Trusts and rich financial firms—are urged to make another money investment in the Republican party, with the prospect of a lucrative return.
The effect of such practices, raised to the dignity of a system, upon our public life is obvious. The “use of money in elections” is an old complaint which has troubled many a patriotic heart. But a generation ago the evil was a trifle compared with what it is now. ”

“ When one considers a Tammany profit, one will perforce be driven to the question: What be the expenses of the machine? The common cost of an election should pause in the neighborhood of three hundred thousand dollars. Should peril crowd, and an imported vote be called for by the dangers of the day, the cost might carry vastly higher. No campaign, however, in the very nature of the enterprise and its possibilities of expense, can consume a greater fund than eight hundred thousand. ”

“ Legislation has reduced these evils in recent years; and efforts have been made to prevent the excessive expenditure of money at elections, and the making of contributions to party “campaign funds” by wealthy corporations who desire to secure some benefit for themselves. ”

“ The requirement that corporate independent expenditures be financed through a segregated fund or PAC expressly established to engage in campaign spending is designed to avert this danger. "The resources available to [a PAC] , as opposed to the corporate treasury, in fact reflect popular support for the political positions of the committee." ”

“ Extensive DNC fundraising occurred because the President and his advisors, including Dick Morris, decided that the party’s massive advertising campaign would cost more than could possibly be provided by the “hard” money in the President’s “official” campaign treasury. To fill the gap, they turned to unregulated “soft” money even though such monies could not by law be used to help a candidate’s campaign for office. Unlike official “campaign” contributions, however, DNC “soft” money could be raised from wealthy donors in unlimited quantities. ”

“ The All-Consuming Fundraising Effort In some ways, the most troubling result of the White House’s and DNC’s ceaseless quest for campaign funding is the great amount of time the President and the Vice President themselves actually spent raising money. As Vice President Gore himself noted, “we can raise the [necessary] money . ”

“ But can you find among all methods of raising money in elections, one that is farther reaching and threatening in the long run more pernicious results than the systematic investment of money by a great financial power in a political party, to obtain through that party legislation securing large pecuniary profits to the investor? Can you imagine a more effective machinery for the use of money in elections, and all that it implies, than a great political party lavishly subsidized by rich men and corporations who seek through it the enactment or continuance of laws to make them still richer? ”

“ So great was the fear of free silver in financial circles, corporations voted money to the huge Republican campaign fund. The opposition could tap no such mine. Never before had a national campaign seen the Democratic party so abandoned by Democrats of wealth, or with so slender a purse. ”

“ The need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish if Congress provided an appropriation for the proper and legitimate expenses of each of the great national parties, an appropriation ample enough to meet the necessity for thorough organisation and machinery, which requires a large expenditure of money. Then the stipulation should be made that no party receiving campaign funds from the Treasury should accept more than a fixed amount from any individual subscriber or donor ”

“ State and local campaigns cost a great deal less. The money is spent for the publication and mailing of campaign literature, for the traveling expenses of speakers, for hire of meeting-places, and for a great many other things which go to make up an election campaign. ”

“ He is quoted, since the transmission of his message, as favoring a return to the large insurance companies of the funds they contributed to the last Republican campaign, and this has brought forth the question from his critics: Why disgorge only the contributions of the insurance companies, when the funds belonging to stock-holders, as well as to policy-holders, have been used by various corporations to influence elections? ”

“ By 1910, Congress began passing disclosure requirements and campaign expenditure limits, and dozens of States passed corrupt practices Acts to prohibit corporate spending in elections. States also enacted campaign spending limits, and some States limited the amount that people could contribute to campaigns. ”

“ It is not for this Court to initiate policies as to the deduction of campaign expenses. It is for Congress to determine the relation of campaign expenditures to tax deductions by candidates for public office, under such circumstances and within such limits as commend themselves to its judgment. But we certainly cannot draw intimations of such a policy from legislation by Congress increasingly restrictive against campaign contributions and political activities by government officials. ”

“ I know a lot about how campaigns work and how, you know, Washington works generally. So we do things like policy disputes, one industry versus another, one company versus another. We don't do a lot of campaign consulting, but every four years for the last couple of cycles we've done some presidential work.
Generally speaking, the way our business is structured most campaigns don't have the budget for the kind of services that we provide. So we only would do things where people have the resources to pay for a serious piece of research. ”

“ For three years—since the last election—these clubs have been scraping money together. The election will cost each side from two to four hundred pounds, and the size of the fight they put up and their output of election literature will be on the scale of the funds in hand. Needless to say, most of the money comes from party sources and private subscriptions outside the University, but owing to the extraordinary nature of the campaign no accounts are ever made public. Like Tammany Hall and other efficient political "machines," a despotism is absolutely necessary. ”

“ Every presidential election threatened to make a clean sweep of the hundreds of thousands of people who were doing the necessary routine work of the nation. Federal office-holders were practically compelled to contribute to campaign expenses, and to work and fight, like a host of mercenaries, for the success of the party which kept them in place. ”

“ That would have been too open a confession of the sham of popular government as well as too expensive. The money contributed by the capitalists to procure the election of the office-seekers was mainly expended to influence the people by indirect means. Immense sums under the name of campaign funds were raised for this purpose and used in innumerable devices, such as fireworks, oratory, processions, brass bands, barbecues, and all sorts of devices, the object of which was to galvanize the people to a sufficient degree of interest in the election to go through the motion of voting. ”

“ Months of time and much money are required for a primary campaign. I venture the assertion that many hundreds of candidates for office in this year of grace began their campaigns for election already encumbered by debts incurred in winning their nominations, which brought them only half-way to the goal. Such a burden, with all its connotations of curtailed liberty and shackling obligations, may not be viewed with equanimity. Instead of making office-holding more attractive to the first-rate man, the direct primary multiplies his discouragements. ”

“ Everyday Americans experience barriers to entry before they can consider running for office to serve their communities. (2) Current law states that campaign funds cannot be spent on everyday expenses that would exist whether or not a candidate were running for office, like childcare and food. ”