Suchergebnisse

Compares the process and results of New York tax reforms, decided by political parties, with California reforms, decided through public referenda.

Before the U.S. campaign finance system can be fixed, we first have to understand why it has developed into the system as it exists today. The nature of democracy itself, the American capitalist economic system, the content of the U.S. Constitution and how it is interpreted, the structure of our governmental institutions, the competition for governmental power, and the behavior of campaign finance actors have all played a role in shaping the system.

The Fundamentals of Campaign Finance in the U.S. takes care to situate the campaign finance system in the context of the broader U.S. political and economic system. Dwyre and Kolodny offer readers a brief tour through the development of the campaign finance regulatory structure, highlighting the Supreme Court's commitment to free speech over political equality from Buckley v. Valeo (1976) through the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA, 2002). They also examine the driving force behind campaign finance reform—corruption—through historical, transactional, and institutional perspectives. While diving into the insufficiency of the disclosure and enforcement of campaign finance laws and calling attention to multiple federal agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, and (principally) the Federal Election Commission, the authors show how a narrow view on campaign finance makes change difficult and why reforms often have limited success. By examining the fundamentals, Dwyre and Kolodny show the difficulties of changing a political system whose candidates have always relied on private funding of campaigns to one that guarantees free speech rights while minimizing concerns of corruption.

Since 2010's Citizen's United Supreme Court decision, there has been increasing concern over the role of spending on elections from groups outside of the Republican and Democratic parties. There has been particular focus on outside spending on more extreme candidates, which could help to increase political polarization. In new research, Robin Kolodny and Diana Dwyre map the organizations which make up parties' extended networks and those which are outside of them. They find that most non-party groups are inside parties' extended networks, and tend to work towards their goals, rather than towards unseating establishment candidates.

There is a good deal of discussion currently among political scientists about the nature of political parties and the impacts of changing party–group relations. Are so-called outside groups promoting extreme candidates and, thus, contributing to polarization? Or perhaps, party-allied groups follow the party's lead and support the same candidates the party supports. We view parties as extended party networks (EPNs) and examine the campaign spending practices of formal party organizations (the House congressional campaign committees) and some of the groups that are seen as allied with each party and some we expect to be outside each party's network. We analyze the levels of congruence and divergence in party and group spending in the 2014 House elections. We find that most nonparty groups support the same candidates favored by the party with which they most identify, and very few are outside each party's EPN-supporting candidates who are challenging the party's picks.

AbstractSuper PACs can raise and spend money in unlimited amounts, but what do they do with their money? What goals do super PACs pursue in allocating their money? We analyze how super PACS spent their money in the 2012 federal elections. What principles guided super PAC spending strategies? Do they follow strategies similar to traditional PACs? We argue that their spending patterns have changed the dynamics of federal campaign finance by directing more funds to individual candidate races than in the past, particularly through candidate-specific super PACs. We find that most super PACs spend their money differently than conventional PACs in that they are less interested in access to sitting lawmakers and more focused on an electoral strategy to affect the partisan composition of government. Thus many super PACs behave more like political parties than traditional PACs.

In this chapter of Life after Reform: When Bipartisan Campaign Reform Meets Politics, the authors reject the assumption that national political parties are strong in the US due to soft money, & argue that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) will create broader competition by changing spending & fundraising strategies at the national level of political parties. The changes in use of resources of soft & hard money are contextualized in the light of the new limits & the new incentives to garner hard money donations. The changes in hard money requirements under BCRA as related to party choice of coordinated or independent spending with their chosen candidate is discussed in the case of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Findings indicate an increased use of political party consultants as a campaign expenditure. In conclusion, the authors predict significant change in the way federal campaigns are financed by a shifting of money away from national party committees to state & local parties, PACs & NGO's. 1 Table, 2 Figures. J. Harwell

Recent efforts by the congressional campaign committees (CCCs), the party organizations charged with electing candidates to the US House of Representatives, have been unusually proactive in pursuing House majorities. The CCCs convinced other party-related actors, such as the national committees, political action committees (PACs) and members of Congress, to help achieve majorities in the House. These party-orchestrated activities are notable for their focus on the legislative party's goals, rather than on the party's presidential candidate. The cooperative efforts of the CCCs with their respective national committees, their attempts to induce cooperation from the PAC community, and their outreach for assistance from their own office-holders are explored. These initiatives in the 1990s reflect a significant shift in tactics. They are a reaction to changes in the level of electoral competition, concurrent with the presence of party entrepreneurs who convinced other political actors to view the party's House electoral success as consistent with their own goals.