McCain-Feingold Act

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McCain-Feingold Act

Legislation in the United States, passed in 2002, that changed the way that campaigns for federal political offices are financed. It banned soft money contributions, which were unregulated, usually large, contributions to the national party committees, instead of individual candidates. It also required political advertisements to state what person or group paid for them.

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soft money

References in periodicals archive ?

So McCain-Feingold prevented the ads from airing during the two-month period preceding the election.

On money and the freedom of speech

Similarly, the Citizens United case invalidated the odious provision of McCain-Feingold that banned any organization from publishing an ad discussing a candidate within 30 days of an election.

Speech = Money

FEC, which struck down portions of the 2001 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law.

Free speech blues

And the 1996 Democratic fundraising abuses paved the way for the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as McCain-Feingold.

Follow the dark money: the down and dirty history of secret spending, PACS gone wild, and the epic four-decade fight over the only kind of political capital that matters

This is the best shot in the arm on the issue that we have had in a long time," says former Senator Russ Feingold, coauthor of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation.

Playing political PACman

Yet by 2008, after six years of evidence that McCain-Feingold did not reduce money in politics, McCain was no longer talking about it.

The appearance of corruption: both Theodore Roosevelt and John McCain tried to save their reputations by pushing campaign finance regulations

The Supreme Court had knocked back a provision of the McCain-Feingold Act that prohibited all corporations and unions from broadcasting electioneering communications.

Goldman to restrict spending on electioneering

It decided not only that McCain-Feingold was unconstitutional as applied to "Hillary," but it also did away with the law's prohibition on corporate electioneering, not to mention two previous decisions upholding it.

Spending spree: Citizens United opens the door to increased corporate campaign contributions

The McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 was an attempt to seal the cracks.

Floodgates already open

With Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in the majority, the court upheld the McCain-Feingold Act against a free-speech challenge by a 5-4 vote in 2003.

Campaigns, guns and jails: states have a lot at stake in the Supreme Court's new session, including a pivotal case on election spending

In response to the demand for reform, the best our Congress could come up with was McCain-Feingold.

The public trough

McCain could heal some of the wounds merely by acknowledging the obvious, which is that McCain-Feingold has had unintended consequences, such as making money in politics less accountable.