Research Proposal

*Note: Due to formatting issues, the Works Cited section includes sources that are not indented.

Christina Aga

Dr. Sonia Apgar Begert

ENGL 102

12 May 2015

Introduction

Outside of the legal community, few have heard of or paid attention to the U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the cases Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission and McCutcheon V. Federal Election Commission, rendered in 2010 and 2014, respectively. Both of these rulings have a profound effect on campaign finance and undo decades of legislation. These rulings, delivered as a one-two punch to campaign finance reform laws, effectively eviscerate legislation meant to thwart corruption and avoid undue influence in the political process. Under the guise of the free speech clause of the First Amendment, these rulings allow special interests groups to buy their way into the political graces of elected officials. With unprecedented levels of campaign spending for the 2012 mid-term presidential election, one may wonder if the 2016 presidential race will have more to do with money and less to do with politics.

These rulings mark a historic departure from previous legislation, one that threatens to undermine the integrity of elected offices. The wording of the Citizens United ruling redefines corruption in a very literal and narrow way, allowing for the re-emergence of previously illegal soft money. The McCutcheon ruling adds insult to injury by eliminating aggregate campaign contribution limits. Both rulings uphold mandatory disclosure provisions, yet these regulatory provisions have no teeth and may be easily side-stepped, allowing for the influence of veiled political actors. This paper will review each of the two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, examine how the rulings alter the way campaigns are financed, and argue that these two rulings are more harmful than helpful to campaign finance. The likely implications of the U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Citizens United and McCutcheon regarding campaign contributions and political participation may very well open to doors to undue influence from shadow parties, veiled political actors, and allow for special interests to avoid disclosure requirements by exploiting the advantages of non-profit status.

Review of Literature

Sources for this writing project are mostly scholarly articles from peer reviewed journals of law or political science. I found Heather Gerken’s article “The Real Problem With Citizens United: Campaign Finance, Dark Money, And Shadow Parties,” a Boden Lecture featured in the Marquette Law Review, to be especially helpful, as it gave an easy-to-read narrative of campaign finance and included her perspective on the ruling. Finance lawyer Cory Kalanick provides his analysis of how non-profit groups are being used to circumvent campaign finance regulations in an article from 2011, “Blowing Up the Pipes: The Use of (c)(4) to Dismantle Campaign Finance Reform,” published in the Minnesota Law Review. Harvard Law Review article, “First Amendment -- Freedom of Speech -- Aggregate Contribution Limits -- McCutcheon v. FEC,” gives a comprehensive outline of the McCutcheon ruling. Deborah Hellman gives a lengthy analysis on why she disagrees with the freedom of speech rationale used to support the Citizens United ruling in “Money Talks but It Isn’t Speech,” also a 2011 article from the Minnesota Law Review. Assistant Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, Ganesh Sitaraman, addresses the restrictions that Citizens United has put on regulating spending and provides insight as to how self-enforcing contracts may be the solution in his article, “Contracting Around Citizens United,” published in the Columbia Law Review in 2014. Anthony Johnstone bemoans recent campaign finance rulings while providing perspective on how to work within the current Citizens United legislative framework in his article, “Recalibrating Campaign Finance Law,” published in the Yale Law & Policy Review in 2013.

In an effort to balance the perspectives that shape this research paper, I take into account Raymond La Raja’s perspective in his 2014 article from the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy, “Campaign Finance and Partisan Polarization in the United States Congress.” La Raja’s paper argues that, in order to minimize ideological polarization between parties, one must strengthen the financing position of party organizations. Jason Campbell plays the devil’s advocate in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review article “Down the Rabbit Hole with Citizens United: Are Bans on Corporate Direct Campaign Contributions Still Constitutional?” and argues that, given the Citizens United ruling, direct corporate financing should be legal. The theme of that article is touched upon in Eliza Newlin Carney’s National Journal article “Court Unlikely to Stop with Citizens United,” in which she speculates that other campaign finance regulations will go by the wayside as a result of Citizens United. Norm Ornstein echoes similar sentiments in his recent 2014 article published in The Atlantic, “McCutcheon and the New Banana Republic,” opining that disclosure will be a difficult thing to mandate as a result of the McCutcheon ruling.

Plan to Collect Information

In addition to the sources cited in this proposal, I plan to review the other sources listed in my working bibliography more closely. I chose not to review and include those articles in this proposal because I still have yet to see how they will work into my paper in a way that I have not already covered. There seems to be some overlap with regard to the dissenting opinions on the McCutcheon and Citizens United rulings and I want to ensure that each source offers my paper a new or fresh take on the issue that I have yet to cover. Additionally, there are two scholarly articles that I have yet to fully review. These are the actual Supreme Court ruling dockets for each case and they are quite lengthy. I want to review one or two more sources that refer to the 2012 mid-term presidential election spending, in addition to reviewing the overall spending disclosures by group since 2010. I anticipate this ancillary information will be useful for comparison purposes when describing the campaign finance climate pre- and post- Citizens United.

Timeline

By the end of this week, I plan on writing a summary analysis of each of the twenty sources that I currently have, in addition to the two court documents, in order to see how I may incorporate them into my paper. Additionally, I will have two of my interlibrary loan documents by the 18^th of May. I plan on having these articles read, reviewed, and summarized by the annotated bibliography due date. These summaries will provide me with a solid foundation for my literature review paper. I will use the literature review as a reference for the purposes of inserting supporting sources to my argument or trim away anything redundant. Aside from organizing my current sources and reading three or four new ones, I am on schedule for starting the draft of my paper.

Works Cited

Campbell, Jason S. "Down The Rabbit Hole With Citizens United: Are Bans On Corporate Direct Campaign Contributions Still Constitutional?" Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 45.1 (2011): 171-206. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 May 2015.

Carney, Eliza N. “Rules of the Game: Court Unlikely To Stop With Citizens United.” National    Journal. National Journal, 21 January 2010. Web. 21 April 2015.

“First Amendment ­– Freedom of Speech – Aggregate Contribution Limits – McCutcheon V. FEC.” Harvard Law Review 128.1 (2014): 201-210. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 April 2015.

Gerken, Heather K. “The Real Problem With Citizens United: Campaign Finance, Dark Money,   And Shadow Parties.” Marquette Law Review 97.4 (2014): 903-923. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 April 2015.

Hellman, Deborah. “Money Talks But It Isn’t Speech.” Minnesota Law Review 95.3 (2011): 953- 1002. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 April 2015.

Johnstone, Anthony. “Recalibrating Campaign Finance Law.” Yale Law & Policy Review 32.1 (2013): 217-237. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 April 2015.

Kalanick, Cory G. “Blowing Up The Pipes: The Use Of (C) (4) To Dismantle Campaign Finance Reform.” Minnesota Law Review 95.6 (2011): 2254-2284. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 April 2015.

La Raja, Raymond J. “Campaign Finance And Partisan Polarization In The United States Congress.” Duke Journal Of Constitutional Law & Public Policy 9.1 (2014): 223-258. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 April 2015.

Ornstein, Norm. “McCutcheon and the New Banana Republic.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic, 17 April 2014. Web. 21 April 2015.

Sitaraman, Ganesh. “Contracting Around Citizens United.” Columbia Law Review 114.3 (2014): 755-806. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 April 2015.