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Teacher: Chris Herr and Tristan Black-Ingersoll
Full lesson plan for Free Speech and Campaign Finance Regulations
The rules come from Jeff Smith's "Campaign Management Boot Camp" at The New School, where he is an assistant professor of Politics and Advocacy.
Money suffuses our political system. Candidates must spend huge sums to get elected, and once they do, well-funded interests spend huge sums to influence how they vote. Campaign finance laws are being struck down, and money is rushing into outside groups that don’t have to disclose their donors. Some studies have found companies can get as much as a 22,000 percent return on their lobbying dollars, while a recent poll from the Global Strategy Group found that more than 90 percent of Americans wants to reduce the role of money in politics. Here’s what’s going on — in charts, of course.
Where do politicians running for office get their money? What do they spend it on? And what does that mean for voters? Vox has the answers.
Welcome to the Campaign Finance Policy Project, where you will find information about campaign finance policy at the state level.
Because of the Supreme Court decision, a constitutional amendment or an overriding decision by the Court would be needed to totally reform campaign finance. There could also be some limited solutions through legislation. Let’s explore all of these options.
Citizens United sought an injunction against the Federal Election Commission in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the application of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) to its film Hillary: The Movie.
Elections have consequences. They decide who holds power and therefore the laws that we live under. But they also reflect principles of federalism and consent of the governed, as well as the complexity of the American system.
This brochure is not intended to be exhaustive in its explanation of the new law; instead, it offers a brief introduction to the BCRA by answering some commonly asked questions.
Students examine the historical context and the drafting of the First Amendment by examining the motivations of the Founding generation.
Campaign finance regulation has a long history in the United States, beginning even before independence was gained from Great Britain. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, efforts focused on protecting employees and union members from being coerced into contributing to political campaigns in order to keep their jobs.
Before going all in, be sure you’ve carefully weighed the pros and cons.
McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, 540 U.S. 93, is a case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of most of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, often referred to as the McCain–Feingold Act.
McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, 572 U.S. 185, was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on campaign finance.
Tracks the race for cash in the 2012 election, as candidates and outside groups work to raise funds.
This book takes an in-depth look at the Constitution, annotated with detailed explanations of its terms and contents.
This book uses historical case studies to explore the rights in the Constitution. Supreme Court cases are used to demonstrate how a right received its modern interpretation, how the right applies today, and how courts and other interpreters seek to balance this right with important societal concerns such as public safety.
A political party is an organized group of people who have the same ideology, or who otherwise have the same political positions, and who field candidates for elections, in an attempt to get them elected and thereby implement the party's agenda.
The decades-old system of rules that govern the financing of the nation's political campaigns was partially upended by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued just ahead of the pivotal 2010 midterm congressional election season.
S tally of the money raised in 2012 and spent through September by the presidential candidates, the national party committees and the primary “super PACs” whose sole purpose is to support a candidate.
The Brennan Center’s Money in Politics Toolkit provides a resource for state and local lawmakers and advocates to develop reforms.
On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. FEC ruling set the stage for larger and larger sums of money to pour into our electoral system. In the ruling, a majority of justices made clear that they viewed outside spending on election ads as free speech that didn't present any serious danger of corruption.
The Watergate campaign finance scandals led to a landmark law designed to limit the influence of money in politics.
From the time America’s first newspaper, Publick Occurrences, appeared in Boston in 1690 to the ratification of the Bill of Rights in December 1791, the Colonial press occupied an important role in the formation of the republic.
In Room for Debate, The Times invites knowledgeable outside contributors to discuss news events and other timely issues.
The story about the struggle over the Bill of Rights is told in this documentary, which explains how these individual freedoms that often are taken for granted today were controversial among the founding fathers and how they were eventually ratified.
Among other cherished values, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech. The U.S. Supreme Court often has struggled to determine what exactly constitutes protected speech. The following are examples of speech, both direct (words) and symbolic (actions), that the Court has decided are either entitled to First Amendment protections, or not.
The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The Founding Fathers established it in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.
Are corporations people? The U.S. Supreme Court says they are, at least for some purposes. And in the past four years, the high court has dramatically expanded corporate rights.
In 1789, the United States sought to make the union more perfect, drawing up 10 amendments to the Constitution now known as the Bill of Rights. In this series of ten short videos, TIME brings to life the words of the Founding Fathers and explores how these deeply felt ideas about liberty and property have evolved into the amendments as we interpret them today.
Take a look at a couple significant Supreme Court cases that have gotten us to our current definition of free speech, and we'll also discuss some of the more controversial aspects of free speech - like hate speech.
Primary Elections Explained
A deep dive into the First Amendment, which guarantees US citizens freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly.
The story about the struggle over the Bill of Rights is told in this documentary, which explains how these individual freedoms that often are taken for granted today were controversial among the founding fathers and how they were eventually ratified. Ten short videos address each of the amendments.
Please contact us with any questions you may have about any of our programs or would like additional information.
