Billionaire Michael Bloomberg spent about $75 million in winning the 2001 New York City mayor election over then-New York City Public Advocate Mark Green, who spent about $17 million. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2003, the candidates for mayor spent a combined total of $27 million. Businessman Bill White won election for mayor of Houston, Texas, in 2003 after spending $8.6 million, nearly twice the previous record there of $4.9 million.

• Even in smaller cities, spending on local elections has increased rapidly. In Tallahassee, Florida, candidates for mayor and four city commission seats spent a total of nearly $1.2 million in 2003, more than tripling the previous spending record. Also in 2003, five candidates for mayor in Waterloo, Iowa, spent a total of $154,000 in their campaigns, more than doubling the previous record set only two years earlier. The mayor of Asheville, North Carolina, spent $123,000 to beat his challenger, who spent $48,000 in the costliest race in city history.

Recent Reform Successes

Despite this rising tide of campaign spending, reformers have been heartened by recent successes and are poised to build from there.

McCain-Feingold. The centerpiece of this success was the hard-fought passage of the McCain-Feingold law (known formally as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002), the nation’s most sweeping election campaign finance reform since the post-Watergate laws. Most notably, it closed the soft money and issue ad loopholes, raised the limit on individual contributions and restricted fundraising and electioneering by political parties, outside groups and individual candidates.
Its most important provisions include:

• Banning outright “soft” money, unlimited contributions to political parties by individuals, businesses or labor unions. It includes a prohibition on soft money fundraising by federal officeholders or candidates in connection with a local, state or federal election.
• Banning soft money spending by state and local parties that directly affects federal elections.
• Banning radio or television “issue ads” that are thinly veiled campaign ads to help candidates for federal office.
• Increasing the maximum individual contribution from $1,000 to $2,000 for a candidate per election, and a ban on such contributions by minors or foreign nationals.
• Requiring new disclosure requirements, such as more frequent campaign finance reports and explicit personal authorization of radio and television ads by candidates.

President Bush signed the McCain-Feingold bill into law on March 27, 2002.

McConnell v. Federal Elections Commission. Opponents, led by U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) immediately filed lawsuits to overturn the legislation, claiming that it violated political speech protected by the First Amendment. They hoped for a result similar to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Buckley v. Valeo in 1976 on the campaign reform law enacted that year. That ruling struck down all spending limits—reasoning that spending was essential to political speech—as well as all limits on a candidate’s personal contributions to his or her campaign.

Instead, on December 10, 2003, the Court ruling in McConnell v. Federal Elections Commission (FEC) upheld almost all of the McCain-Feingold law, most notably the ban on soft money in federal elections and the regulation of issue ads. (It invalidated the law’s ban on contributions by minors and another provision regulating parties’ election spending.) In the majority opinion, the Court ruled, “There is substantial evidence in these cases to support Congress’ determination that such contributions of soft money give rise to corruption and the appearance of corruption.”

Supporters of the law hailed the ruling. Charles Kolb, president of the Committee for Economic Development (CED), stated that “This is a victory for the American people and our democracy.” Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) stated, “In very clear language, the Court has recognized that the Constitution of the United States does not prevent Congress from giving the American people a campaign finance system that protects our democracy from the perils of unlimited contributions.”

State and Local Public Financing. While 27 states now have some form of public campaign financing, until recently they were limited programs that provided partial funding of the real amounts needed to wage a competitive campaign, or directly funded qualified political parties, or provided tax deductions or credits to contributors.

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