Talk:Campaign finance reform in the United States

I think it would be great to include this information in the article, but I wasn't sure where: Between 2005 and 2007, U.S. House members raise 79% of campaign funds from outside their districts. Found in the non-profit Maplight's report, "Remote Control", October 28, 2008. http://www.maplight.info/remotecontrol08/RemoteControl08Report.pdf  Any idea where this might fit? Lentoperoavanzo (talk) 00:12, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I am adding a paragraph or two about the two Yale Law School professors Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres proposal to make campaign contributions anonymous through the FEC as reported in Salon and detailed in their book "Voting with Dollars". DetonatedManiac 21:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)DetonatedManiac

Added the 3 paragraphs at the bottom, This is my first Wikipedia addition, please let me know if I made any errors. Also I was not sure what I should add to references. What I wrote was based primarily on the Salon article How to fix campaign financing forever for $50 which I referenced in my 2nd paragraph in regards to the 2004 voting figures. I didn't want to mess with the references for the whole entry as it seemed like a bit of code and I am not yet sure of Wikipedia conventions. Thanks DetonatedManiac 21:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)DetonatedManiac

I made some more changes to the 3 paragraphs I added earlier. In trying to clarify I ended up restructuring quite a bit and added a few more of Ackerman and Ayers arguments. I might suggest that someone add some rebuttal to their claims and their plan, as I admit I am a bit biased, but I tried to stay neutral. Some things to look into: the radical nature of their proposal, the cost (if 50 x 120 million is $6 billion dollars, thats quite a bit coming from taxes, plus the overhauls needed at the FEC) and the possible infringements of freedom of speech if contributions are made anonymously.DetonatedManiac 00:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I added a few "citation needed" indicators in the "Other Criticisms" section. I also added a "Weasel words" banner in the same section, due to sentences that begin with phrases like "Most opponents claim," "many opponents point out that," and "Still, others point to," which do not contain citations or indications of who these "opponents" are. Fitzador (talk) 21:42, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

American Term?
The article states that "Campaign finance reform is the common term for the political effort in the United States to change the involvement of money in politics, primarily in political campaigns."

Campaign finance reform has occurred and is occurring elsewhere in the world. For example in Canada it has made a huge difference in campaigning. Perhaps the title should be changed, or the article expanded to discuss the issue of campaign finance reform in general.

--70.53.50.112 19:07, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

This article is still biased...
I suppose Wikipedia tries to be unbiased but this article has failed. There are several references in the article to the campaign finance reform "scheme". Also, the article cites a report by the GAO as non-partisan. Since when has any arm of the government besides the Supreme Court (and that is disputable) ever actually been non-partisan under any administration? You can't be non-partisan, no matter what the agency claims, as long as you are working for the party in power. They are your bosses. Let's get real. Also, I looked over the GAO's report, which Wikipedia says has nothing positive to say about the campaign finance reform study. No, it doesn't. However, it doesn't have anything negative to say, either. The study, for all it's length and verbage basically says that the study's findings are inconclusive. In addition, I have questions about the non-partisan findings of a study in which Mr. Trent Lott, a friend of President Bush's and the author, an official from Homeland Security -- of all places -- are doing the work. This study appears to be just more political spin by the powers in Washington.

K.K. McAllister —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

I removed "and liberal interest groups (AFL-CIO and American Civil Liberties Union) as opposing Finance reform" as AFL-CIO was a sponsor with others of the Maine Clean elections law http://www.mainecleanelections.org/ (look at very bottom) and the ACLU merely offered concerns that announcing who was a "Clean Election" candidate could be read as support for that candidate and a court ruled the concerns not justified. That is hardly "Vehement opposition" above link has article on ACLU "opposition" Dragonwlkr (talk) 16:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The entire section on "current proposals for reform" is nothing but a grab bag of different hobby horses. It sheds little light on the true desirability of these various proposals, or the odds of anything occurring around them. Having worked in this field a long time, there are lots of loopy proposals out there, and lots of proposals, some loopy and some not, that have very little popular support and aren't really part of the discussion. There are lots of equally or more serious proposals to those included that are not included. In the end, the whole section is a bit random. Editors are adding stuff that appeals to them or that they've heard about, but they're not really people who understand the law or the proposals or the history, so the whole section is lacking in perspective and proportion, and that takes down the whole article. It would be like me sitting down and writing on an article about space travel, with all my suggestions for what policymakers should do. It seems to me that this type of section serves no serious point in such an article. It doesn't really educate anyone about campaign finance reform--it's basically random musings by amateurs.EABSE (talk) 20:52, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article be "Campaign Finance Reform in the United States"?
This article seems so focused on the United States (it's right there in the first paragraph!) that I think altering it to conform to the policies on worldwide perspectives is just hopeless. It should probably just have "in the United States" in the title. Elliotreed (talk) 16:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Indeed, I suggest a move. Will be bold about it unless people give logical reasons why this should not be done. Ingolfson (talk) 11:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Campaign finance reform now redirects to Campaign finance reform in the United States, as if efforts toward campaign finance reform did not exist in other countries. This link should be re-targeted to a more relevant page if possible. Jarble (talk) 11:51, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Removed paragraph
I removed this paragraph:


 * Others argue that money can never be separated from political influence. This has become painfully true with the influence and power exhibited in the 2004 elections by 527s such as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and Moveon.org. These two groups, among others, spent nearly $400 million on influencing the most recent elections, namely by heavily criticizing, respectively Sen. John Kerry and Pres. George W. Bush.

Omitting the first bit, it might be useful elsewhere, but it makes a huge logical leap in concluding that "money can never be separated from political influence" based solely on the fact that current finance reform has failed to eliminate specific instances of influence. Dcoetzee 03:35, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Libertarian concerns about public financing
I removed this section because it reads as an extremely one-sided rant.

There's good, actual info in there, but it could do without the moralizing and speechifying. Dfunk1967 (talk) 05:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Care to provide an example instead of speechifying and ranting? McGlockin (talk) 23:49, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Additions I made, and suggestions
Under the "2012 Supreme Court Ruling", subsection "Arguments Against", the quote given is taken completely out of context, and thus it makes little sense and contributes little (unless you happen a constitutional attorney).

Likewise, under the subsection "Arguments For" the final sentence is: "Before turning to the question whether to overrule Austin and part of McConnell, it is important to explain why the Court should not be deciding that question". This sentence is also out of context, and it contributes little to a reader who is not a constitutional attorney.

I have partially rewritten the section under "2012 Supreme Court Ruling" because what was there before was worded in what sounded like a matter-of-factly biased way. I also added a second excerpt from Justice Stevens's partial dissent, which I find a lot more indicative of the positions of the opposing justices than is the second, shorter quote, which was not inserted by me. Worldrimroamer (talk) 23:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Article Incompleteness Improved
I improved the article by adding the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, which is the most important court decision on campaign finance ever given. The 1980's and the 1990's reform attempts were numerous and also missing from the article, they were added. The 2010 DISCLOSE ACT (most recent legislative attempt at reform) was also missing, so I added that proposal as well. Some early attempts at campaign finance are still missing, though the most important modern reforms and reform attempts are now covered.McGlockin (talk) 19:28, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Effects of U.S. CFR on 2012 presidential & congressional elections
Super PACs seem to have won for Romney. Obama is said to have $1billion coming. (Gingrich said this more than once in the Republican primary debates, but some Conservative insiders say that Obama's fund-raising is falling short.) Candidates are not allowed to direct and control the super PACs, which can deliver any message per First Amendment free speech. Will it make a difference if the super PAC message is so 'over-the-top' that it offends? Will the truth win out? Will superPACs help get the truth out? Just asking, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 01:46, 12 April 2012 (UTC) Keep an eye out for improvement and history to go into this currently excellent WP Article.

Simply inaccurate
This article is simply inaccurate, over and over. It really needs to be reworked top to bottom. The second sentence says that the first successful attempts to regulate were the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1972, ignoring the Tillman Act (banning corporate contributions, 1907), the Publicity Act (requiring disclosure 1911), the Corrupt Practices Act (1925 revising law), the Taft-Hartley Act (prohibiting corporate and union expenditures). It says that McCain-Feingold sought to "eliminate... TV advertising expenditures," which is simply not true. These are just a couple examples. I think most of it is unsalvageable in its current form.EABSE (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 05:42, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

NPOV and accuracy tags: Missing several examples of current proposals for reform
Because the list of current proposals for reform is missing the leading examples, I am adding a NPOV tag to that section. Because of the accuracy concerns in multiple sections on this talk page above, I am adding a dispute tag. 173.197.107.11 (talk) 03:52, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

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Citations Needed Under "First Attempts"
Hello fellow editors. The section titled the same as this section lead "First Attempts" badly needs citations. The claims of historical fact need attribution. If anyone can direct us to sources that the information came from, that would be helpful. Aquarius2018 (talk) 18:48, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Amendment Section Change
Change 1 I am looking to change the amendment section by deleting the occupy movement theme from it. The whole section has been labeled as biased and this section in particular seems to focus on a group rather than what the page is focused on. Several sentences seem to just focus on talking about the occupy movement, how a book provides a manifesto, and how someone provides credibility to the group. I believe parts can be left in as the one amendment was inspired by the group, but the other parts seem to just go off on a path better suited elsewhere.

Change 2 There are several other amendments that have been proposed for campaign finance reform listed on wikipedia that I would like to bring in as introductory paragraphs here. I am not sure why they are placed elsewhere and the one amendment listed is focused on the occupy movement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Okikuma (talk • contribs) 20:29, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Removal of sentences and paragraphs from history section
There are several areas in the history section that have requested citations. Upon researching the only links I have found to this information is found on a website that I am unsure of the credibility. Certain paragraphs are almost identical and I am unsure who copied from who potentially. As these have been needing citation from awhile and the only links possible seem to be from this academickids.com website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Okikuma (talk • contribs) 01:51, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

The Center For Competitive Politics study source link
I noticed the link for the study done by the center for competitive politics isn't linking to the study described. I'm guessing it might be outdated? (Assuming the source was there to validate that the study was done, if it was only meant to validate that the organization states that they're opposed to campaign finance reform, I think it's probably fine.)

Should this be updated with a link to the study?

(First time making one of these, if this is an inappropriate area to ask this let me know ) ImAUserNow (talk) 18:30, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I just got a notification saying I made an edit? If I did it was inadvertent and should be reverted. ImAUserNow (talk) 18:32, 19 May 2022 (UTC)