Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and amendments
The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971, amended in subsequent years, was a significant legislative response to the rising costs of federal election campaigns in the United States, particularly influenced by the growing role of television advertising. Initially enacted under President Nixon, the law aimed to establish spending limits for candidates and to improve financial transparency in political campaigns. As campaign expenditures soared, especially after the 1968 elections, it became clear that the existing regulations were inadequate. Following the Watergate scandal, further amendments in 1974 introduced more stringent controls, including overall spending caps and public financing provisions for presidential candidates who opted out of private donations. However, the Supreme Court's decision in Buckley v. Valeo in 1976 struck down several key provisions, citing First Amendment protections for campaign contributions, which complicated the regulatory landscape. Subsequent amendments, including those in 1979, sought to tighten reporting procedures and address loopholes. Overall, the FECA and its amendments marked a fundamental shift in the regulation of campaign finance in the U.S., though challenges such as the influence of political action committees (PACs) and the benefits of incumbency remained persistent issues within the electoral system.
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Subject Terms
Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and amendments
Identification Legislation that governs the financing of election campaigns for the presidency and Congress
Date Signed into law in 1972
The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and its amendments enacted the most sweeping reforms of campaign finances in U.S. history and initiated the public financing of presidential races.
As the United States entered the television age, the financing of federal election campaigns was still regulated by the Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, which was outdated and had never led to any prosecutions of violators. Largely because of escalating expenditures for television advertising, the amount of money spent during presidential election campaigns jumped from 30 million dollars in 1960 to 100 million dollars in 1968, and it became evident that new measures were needed to rein in the costs of running for office.
The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon in 1972, established limits on the amount of money candidates for federal office could spend on advertising in general, provided that no candidate could spend more than 60 percent of his or her media expenditures on broadcast advertising, limited the advertising rates charged to candidates to the lowest rate charged to other advertisers, placed a ceiling on the contributions candidates could make to their own campaigns (ranging up to fifty thousand dollars for a presidential candidate), and strengthened the reporting procedures for political committees and candidates. Following the 1972 presidential election campaign, however, it was obvious that the law had not prevented spending on the presidential campaign from escalating to $138 million, nor had it prevented a disturbing reliance on large and, in some cases, even illegal contributions by the Nixon campaign.
Amendments
After the Watergate scandal and the official investigations that followed in its wake, opposition to further campaign finance reform weakened, and the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act that were passed by Congress and signed into law by President Gerald R. Ford were even more sweeping than the 1971 law itself. Replacing the previous spending limits on media advertising, spending limits were established on total campaign expenditures. For presidential candidates, the limits were ten million dollars in a nomination campaign and twenty million dollars in a general election. Limits were also placed on political party expenditures and on the amount of individual contributions to candidates, and a six-member bipartisan Federal Election Commission was established with the power to receive campaign reports, set rules, and conduct investigations.
The biggest innovation was a provision for complete public financing of presidential candidates who would forgo private donations, in the amount of twenty million dollars for major party candidates and in lesser amounts for minor party candidates, depending on the proportion of the vote achieved in the previous election. However, a 1976 ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of Buckley v. Valeo declared several provisions of the 1974 amendments unconstitutional, based on the principle that campaign contributions constituted political speech protected by the First Amendment, and this ruling necessitated a new set of provisions. Signed into law that same year by President Ford, the new amendments not only provided for a reconstitution of the Federal Election Commission but also took limits off of contributions by candidates to their own campaigns (unless publicly funded), set new limits on the amount of money that could be contributed to candidates by political action committees (PACs) and national party committees, and changed reporting procedures while retaining other features of the law.
The final amendment of the decade was passed by Congress in 1979 and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1980. It mainly served to revise reporting procedures and close some loopholes; for example, by prohibiting federal candidates from converting campaign contributions to their private use.
Impact
To the extent that the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 was intended to limit the amount of money spent on election campaigns, it had some apparent success. In 1976, expenditures on the presidential election campaign amounted to $160 million, which, when adjusted for inflation, was less than in the campaign of 1972 and even slightly less than that of 1968. Adjusted for inflation, the costs of the 1980 and 1984 presidential campaigns remained in the neighborhood of the 1972 race. If the purpose of the law was to open the political arena to lesser-known candidates by providing public funding during the primary stage, again there is evidence of success: One-term Georgia governor Jimmy Carter secured the Democratic Party’s nomination and the presidency in 1976, and, while not winning nomination, several dark-horse candidates performed well in following presidential elections.
The reforms of the 1970’s fell short in other respects, however, as all attempts failed to extend the concept of public financing to congressional races, despite support from President Carter, and the financial advantages of incumbency persisted unabated and continued to seriously inhibit the prospects of challengers. Moreover, PACs continued to funnel large amounts of money to candidates and raise questions about the buying of votes in Congress by special-interest lobbies. However, overall, the 1971 law and its amendments changed the ground rules of American politics and institutionalized a system of regulating federal campaign finances that would continue well beyond the 1970’s.
Bibliography
Alexander, Herbert, and Anthony Corrado. Financing the 1992 Election. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1995. Examines the influence of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 on elections through the following two decades, particularly the 1992 election.
Carrado, Anthony, et al., eds. Campaign Finance Reform: A Sourcebook. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1997. This book summarizes and provides a commentary on all of the major federal campaign finance laws.
Malbin, Michael, ed. Money and Politics in the United States: Financing Elections in the 1980’s. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1984. A collection of essays on a range of issues associated with campaign finance.