Monday, March 20, 2017 Objective: Students will be able to analyze how candidates raise money for election campaigns. Importance: The amount of money raised by a candidate or organization has an impact on what issues are discussed and what legislation is passed.

Financing Campaigns Elections are expensive According to government data, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney's spending for the 2012 presidential election topped $1.2 billion dollars If left unregulated, getting and spending of campaign funds can corrupt the entire political process

The huge amount of money spent on campaign advertising is spread across many different media. Why might travel expenses go down as advertising expenses go up?

Where the Money Comes From Individuals Small donations Fundraising events such as special dinners Government Subsidies are provided to parties based on their size Political Action Committees (PACs) political arms of special-interest groups and other organizations impacted by elections

Candidates are raising and spending more money now than ever, with spending doubling from 2000 to 2012. What spending trend does this graph reveal?

Each of these PACs supported both Democrats and Republicans in the 2012 campaign. What do the two PACs giving the most to Democrats have in common?

Federal Election Commission Rules Only $2,500 can be donated by 1 person to any federal candidate Only $5,000 can be donated by 1 person to any PAC Limit of all donations must be below $117,000 per person No PAC can give more than $5,000 to any one federal candidate in an election

No more than three members of the FEC can belong to the same political party. What other evidence that the commission is regulated by a system of checks and balances can you see?

Special Interests and Campaign Finance 527 organizations: political advocacy nonprofits which do not support certain parties or candidates, but try to influence policies on certain issues try to influence the outcome of elections through voter mobilization efforts and TV ads that praise or criticize a candidate’s record are allowed to raise unlimited sums of money Example: The Swift Boat Veterans organization was set up to portray Democratic candidate John Kerry’s past military service in a negative light

Special Interests and Campaign Finance Super PACs: PACs that are unaffiliated with any political party, which are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts they must reveal their donors and cannot work directly with a candidate’s campaign Super PACs have allowed national financiers to have major impacts on state and local elections Example: Wisconsin in 2010

Interest groups spent large amounts of money in the 2012 election Interest groups spent large amounts of money in the 2012 election. Approximately by what factor did conservative groups outspend other groups in the 2012 election?

Restore Our Future raised money for Mitt Romney's campaign, whereas the two Majority PACs focused on congressional races. What can you infer about Democratic goals in 2012?

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/av6bvx/the-colbert-report-colbert- super-pac---coordination-resolution-with-jon-stewart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8wB1mavl4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HHo4Xhh-Ds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vda3L16NG3U

Citizen’s United Explained Read the article silently and answer the questions using complete sentences. The questions are in order. You may write on the reading When you are finished, please place your completed questions in the folder on the front table. Please recycle the reading if you are not going to keep it. Sit quietly once finished. This assignment is due at the end of class today.