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This chapter reviews existing research about campaign finance and the funding of the campaigns of women candidates for public office. Burrell discusses the role of women's political action committees (PACs), reviews the findings regarding campaign contributions to women candidates, and proposes an agenda for future research on money and women's candidacies for office.

This chapter examines how antecedent political events created a window of opportunity for campaign finance reformers during the period 1956–1974, including a series of scandals such as Watergate. In the 1960s, campaign finance reform emerged from a reform coalition composed of legislators, experts, philanthropists, foundations, and public interest groups. The coalition succeeded in placing campaign finance reform on the national agenda even without widespread public interest or support. It left intact most of the underlying pressures on campaign finance. For example, they did not tackle the declining importance of political parties, leaving high-cost television as the principal medium of political communication. The chapter highlights the tensions that arose over campaign finance that reached a boiling point when President Richard Nixon began his second term in office.

Although the American constitutional regime pays emphatic lip service to the ideal of reasoned persuasion in elections, its actual institutional arrangements in fact presuppose just the opposite—election campaigns that are thin rather than thick, aggregative rather than persuasive. In social science terminology, American constitutional law rests on the presupposition that public opinion is exogenous to political campaigns rather than endogenous to them. As a result, the legal structure of American politics is weighted heavily toward the premise that the central purpose of an election campaign is not to provide a forum in which citizens can reflect upon and arrive at sound political opinions, but rather is simply to tabulate as accurately as possible the opinions that citizens already hold at the inception of the campaign. This proposition is developed through examination of the constitutional rules governing ballot access, campaign finance, and party association.

This chapter discusses the influence of campaign finance over politics. Topics covered include impact of campaign finance on government ethics, the insufficiency and excessiveness of disclosure requirements, overcoming obstacles to effective campaign finance reform, and public funding of election campaigns.

Chapter 5 provides additional tests of the effects of election reform by assessing the consequences of campaign finance rules. Money in politics attracts a series of complaints—and raises a series of concerns about untoward and unwarranted influence of money in politics. The UK and US have seen the adoption of a series of finance reforms over the past ten to twenty years aimed at alleviating these concerns, and introducing transparency into the system in an attempt to restore public confidence in electoral politics. But the evidence from both the UK and the US shows that these reforms have simply not had the effect of reducing these concerns among voters. Voters seem to be just as cynical about the role of money politics after these reforms as before.

Campaign finance reformers, politicians, and academics have been arguing for decades that democracy is imperiled by a threat that permeates all of politics: money. Money in politics, these elites tell us, is to blame for a wide array of ills in American society that threaten democracy: moneyed interests buying elections, rampant corruption, and declining trust in government. The elites are wrong, yet the American public believes them. This book is about why that matters. Specifically, the US Supreme Court’s justification for upholding the constitutionality of campaign finance laws rests on public attitudes toward government—namely, preventing “the appearance of corruption.” Using original survey data from the 2015 and 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, Primo and Milyo show this is problematic because the public is misinformed about money in politics, its support for free speech is often driven by partisan or ideological considerations, and it “sees” corruption in the everyday activities of politicians. Moreover, using survey data spanning thirty years, Primo and Milyo show that state-level campaign finance reforms have no meaningful effect on trust and confidence in government, contrary to the claims of reformers but consistent with public skepticism about reform.

Primo and Milyo construct the largest dataset to date of survey results asking Americans about their trust or confidence in state government. The dataset pools nearly 60,000 individual-level observations culled from more than 50 surveys fielded between 1987 and 2017. This time period spans several major court decisions, including Citizens United. Primo and Milyo then combine this survey data with state-level data on changes in campaign finance laws and other state-level rules and institutional features during this time period. Using this data, they conduct the first study to examine the within-state determinants of trust and confidence in state government by exploiting the variation in campaign finance laws across states and over time. Primo and Milyo find that there simply is no meaningful relationship between state-level trust in government and state campaign finance laws during this time period. This is a major finding running counter to forty years of jurisprudence, as well as reformers’ promises and scholarly claims that reform is critical to maintaining or restoring citizens’ faith in the integrity of democracy.

This chapter contrasts his consequentialist account of democratic rights with prominent nonconsequentialist accounts, including those of Rawls, Habermas, Barry, and Waldron. He explains why majority rule itself requires a consequentialist rationale. To illustrate that the rationale for democratic rights is consequentialist, the chapter proposes an alternative to democratic rights, election by deliberative poll, that would be an improvement under the main principle, were it not for the potential for abuse. Democratic rights are a solution to a CAP. To be endorsed by the main principle, democratic rights must equitably promote the life prospects of all compliers and nonresponsible noncompliers. The chapter argues that group rights or cultural rights are not fundamental rights, but rather rights that are instrumental to protecting the individual rights of members of minorities against majorities. The chapter shows that the main principle can explain why human rights, including democratic rights, should be inalienable. This is a puzzle on many nonconsequentialist views. The chapter describes one kind of problem that no form of government, not even democracy, is very good at solving, the time lag problem. Finally, the chapter discusses the inappropriateness of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning campaign finance reform laws on free speech grounds.

This empirical chapter draws on a series of congressional investigations into election campaigns and lobbying conducted between 1912 and 1957 (plus additional data on the early 1960s) to identify interest groups and related organizations—including early PACs—that participated in elections during this period. The major groups so identified—primarily business organizations, labor unions, and ideological groups—form the spine of the narrative throughout the book. This chapter highlights changes in their major organizational features and electoral practices over time. Furthermore, it explores the controversies surrounding both political parties and “special interests” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly concerning the influx of money into election campaigns, which prompted these congressional investigations in the first place. It also offers an overview of campaign finance legislation and reforms that Congress passed in response.

In this chapter, Primo and Milyo delve more deeply into the question of public support for reform. They find that the public has a fairly nuanced view of reform. While Americans support campaign finance reform in the abstract, this support dips once Americans are asked about specific regulations or the overall efficacy of reforms. In fact, only about one-third of respondents in Primo and Milyo’s 2015 survey believe that even the “right package of reforms” will reduce public corruption in any meaningful way. And the public is very skeptical about certain reforms, such as the public financing of campaigns. This chapter also highlights the deep partisan and ideological divisions on the issue of campaign finance, as well as the role that misinformation about campaign finance plays in support for campaign finance restrictions.

In the conclusion, Primo and Milyo summarize the book’s findings. (1) Americans know very little about money in politics, and ignorance about campaign finance is associated with greater support for reform. (2) Americans value First Amendment rights, but this support weakens for disfavored speakers (such as corporations) or if the issue is framed in a manner to emphasize money rather than political speech and participation. (3) Americans believe that corruption has infected nearly all aspects of the political process, and this cynicism is heightened by policy disagreement—what they call “contingent cynicism.” (4) Americans are polarized by party and ideology with regard to restrictions on campaign spending and contributions. They are less polarized on disclosure (which they like—at least in part) and public financing (which is thoroughly unpopular). (5) There is no scientific evidence that campaign finance reforms actually increase public trust in government. Based on these findings, Primo and Milyo conclude that campaign finance reform is not the cure for what ails American democracy, and they suggest instead that reformers, the media, scholars, and foundations devote their efforts to better educating the American public about the role of money in politics.

This chapter conducts a mixed-method case study of financial deregulation, showing that rising economic inequality made it easier to achieve a bipartisan majority in favor of inequality-inducing deregulatory policy change (culminating in repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act). A combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis shows that rising inequality contributed to financial deregulation in a variety of ways. First, electoral losses for Democrats become more common. Republicans were ideologically committed to deregulation, and their increased power set the stage for policy change. Second, rising inequality created strategic incentives for Democrats to join Republicans in supporting deregulation. With middle class income stagnation, households increasingly were forced to rely on credit to maintain living standards, and deregulation was framed as a way to reduce credit constraint. As well, Democrats became increasingly reliant on corporate sources of campaign finance, which may have softened their opposition to deregulation. Finally, politicians representing districts increasingly exposed to foreign competition due to globalization were easier to convince that financial deregulation would increase U.S. competitiveness in the global economy. In sum, rising inequality made it more likely for an inegalitarian policy change to occur, which provides yet another example of how politics can serve to reinforce inequality.

The size of the Commons varies according to population growth modified by the aim of equalizing the size of constituencies. Adjustments are proposed by the impartial Boundaries Commissions. Even after the departure of most hereditaries, the Lords remains a large House. Parliaments last roughly four years. The Electoral Commission registers and monitors donations to political parties and election expenses. Members' salaries are no longer under Commons control but allowances remain a difficulty. Decennial and a recent mid‐decade reapportionment of a fixed number of House seats based on State laws drawing partisan boundaries, coupled with non‐inclusive primary voter participation and the increased costs of election and constant fund‐raising by incumbents impacts on the quality of Members, their willingness to work collegially, and on their legislative productivity.

Those who affect the outcomes of elections—via financial or means—often have greater access to elected officials. Yet, we frequently have little information about the dynamics of elections, let alone the relationship between campaigns and subsequent sway over officials. I draw on surveys of politicians to illuminate three key aspects of campaign dynamics in India: differences in campaign costs across levels of government; variations in funding sources across levels; and the role of various actors in providing other forms of campaign assistance. I find, first, that financial support from political parties is relevant only at high levels of elected office, whereas personal resources dominate at lower levels. Second, a substantial portion of all respondents highlights the role of illicit funds in campaigns. Finally, sources of non-financial assistance—for example, for voter mobilization—differ across levels of government.

Chapter 1 describes the Supreme Court’s reasoning on campaign finance regulation, free speech, and political campaigns and then offers a chapter-by-chapter plan for testing the key assumptions underlying the Court’s reasoning. The behavioral model of the Buckley v. Valeo (1976) links individuals’ perceptions of corruption to their decisions to participate politically, hypothesizing that the greater an individual’s perception of corruption the less likely that person is to participate in the political process (e.g., vote) because of an erosion of trust in government. Based on these assumptions, the Court accepts the mitigation of corruption as the (lone) compelling state interest for limits on money in politics. Chapter 1 outlines how the authors will empirically explore the behavioral model posited by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision.

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.

After the 2008 election Republicans were sunk in remorse and fear that their party had “lost its way” and might be relegated to minority status for years to come, while liberal commentators and politicians hailed a historic realignment ushering in a new center-left majority. In less than a year, however, much of the public had turned against the Democratic administration and Congress on major national issues, and polls found conservatives increasing their lead over liberals within the electorate to two-to-one. But only twenty percent of voters identified themselves as Republicans. Some Republican strategists argue that the party should be more consistently conservative to provide a clear alternative to Democratic liberalism. Others maintain that it should offer a more positive program and image to attract independent voters. The truth is that it probably needs to do both.

Chapter 6 exposes as inaccurate the perception popular among journalists and academics that financing for the United Center consisted mostly of private funds. In fact, Reinsdorf and his partners benefited from tens of millions of dollars in property and amusement tax breaks that offset the bulk of their initial investment in constructing the facility. The tax breaks were representative of a shift to more opaque forms of public funding for stadiums during the 1990s--forms that offered no concrete returns (e.g. profit share) to the public, which were relatively common in the immediate postwar period. The breaks were also emblematic of the broader expansion of corporate welfare in the U.S. since the 1970s in response to a dramatic expansion in corporate campaign contributions (Reinsdorf and his partners were very proactive campaign donors). In Chicago, specifically, the tax abatements also encapsulated efforts by local capitalists to undermine municipal politicians' attempts to cling to a relatively progressive property tax system in order to maintain funding for public goods like neighborhood schools. As these corporate efforts succeeded with more and more frequency during the 1980s and 1990s, municipal officials compensated by passing a wide array of new, regressive sales taxes and user fees.