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Campaign finance | Political participation | US government and civics | Khan Academy - YouTube

Channel: Khan Academy

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let's talk a little bit about money in

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elections in the united states and the

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various actors that might be involved

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you of course at the center of the

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action you have the various campaigns

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for the candidates then you have the

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party committees that will try to

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influence the election we'll talk about

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how in a little bit you have individuals

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who besides being voters can also be

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donors and then you have organizations

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it could be corporations it could be

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interest groups it could be labor unions

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and then last but not least we have

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these two boxes where you see pack one

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and pack two and so the obvious question

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is what is a pack well it stands for

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political action committee and they've

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been around for decades and a simple way

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to think about it is it's a way to pull

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resources which then can be donated to

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other parties to influence an election

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but how can the money actually flow

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well as you can see it can flow in many

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many many different ways and to help us

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understand this i'm going to introduce

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some terminology that you might have

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heard before there is hard money

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and hard money is money that is actually

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regulated by the federal election

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committee and there are caps in terms of

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how much people can donate to various

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parties in general any donation to a

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candidate's campaign is considered hard

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money so that would be hard money there

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coming from the individuals this would

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be hard money right over here coming

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from that pack which has pooled a bunch

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of money this would be hard money right

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over here coming from that pack to

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donald trump's campaign this would be

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hard money coming from the democratic

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party to hillary clinton's campaign or

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from the republican party

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to donald trump's campaign if there's

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something called hard money perhaps

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there's also something called soft money

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and you would be correct there is

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something called soft money a simple

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definition for soft money is it doesn't

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have the regulations that hard money

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does and so an example of it would be

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let's say the democratic party here some

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of the money that they spend so i'll

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just draw some of the money they spend

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this part right over here or maybe some

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of the money that the republican party

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spends during the election it's used for

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what's sometimes known as party building

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activities to get more people to join

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their party or to advertise about

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certain issues and as long as it's done

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not in coordination with the candidates

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campaigns this is not going to have any

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limit and so some of the money that goes

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from an individual

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to a party or some of the money that

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goes from a pack to a party can also be

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considered soft money if once again if

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it keeps separate from coordinating with

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a candidate's actual campaign and use

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for those party building activities

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now party building is a pretty broad

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definition and soft money has been

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demonized a lot because people say well

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it's just a way of getting around

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campaign finance regulations because

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even though it might not be directly

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coordinated with a candidate's campaign

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it can influence an election in a pretty

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significant way

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now to further understand this diagram

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you see these dotted lines between the

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corporations or the labor unions and

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these political action committees what

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does that mean

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well a political action committee can be

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connected or sponsored by a corporation

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or a labor union but it cannot receive

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funds directly from the treasury of that

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corporation or labor union but the

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corporation can sponsor it can say hey

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this is associated with us and it can if

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it's a labor union it can go to its

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membership and say hey i want you to

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donate to this pack if it's a

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corporation it can go to its management

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team and say hey let's all donate to

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this pack personally or it could go to

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its shareholders and say hey why don't

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we all donate to this pack because this

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pack can donate money to the party or

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the candidate that might help influence

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the election in a way that might benefit

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us or benefit the corporation

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now an attempt to limit soft money came

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in 2002

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when you have the bipartisan campaign

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reform act of 2002 often known as mccain

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feingold who are the two sponsors in the

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senate among other things it tried to

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limit this soft money after this act

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even this party spending would have to

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be hard money it would have to be

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subjected to the caps when they are

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raising that money it also made clear

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that corporations and labor unions

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couldn't participate in what's called

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electioneering activities where they're

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spending money on say issue based ads

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with oftentimes the intent of

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influencing the election especially in

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the run-up to the election so this was

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made explicitly illegal as well but this

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gets challenged in 2010

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where you have this major case citizens

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united versus the federal election

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committee

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citizens united was an organization that

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was releasing a movie called hillary the

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movie during the 2008 election

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and this was a movie that was pretty

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negative on hillary clinton and so the

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argument of the government was that hey

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even though this looks like a movie it's

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really political advertising it's

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electioneering as we have as we go into

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the run-up to an election and so

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citizens united which is a non-profit

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corporation should not be able to do

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this

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but the supreme court ruled in citizens

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united's favor they said as long as they

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are not coordinating with the actual

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candidates campaigns they are allowed

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based on the notion of free speech to

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directly participate in electioneering

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in the run-up to an election and to a

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large degree the citizens united ruling

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from 2010 really gutted the strength of

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the bipartisan campaign reform act of

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2002. that act was trying to curtail

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soft money that for the most part was

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going through parties but now post

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citizens united on both sides folks

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started to say gee i could start an

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organization that pulls money

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let's call that a pac

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but i'm going to keep it independent

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it's not going to coordinate in any

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other way with the elections of the

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individual candidates and so this is

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often referred to technically as an

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independent expenditure pac

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and here post citizens united i can get

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unlimited

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unlimited funding from corporations or

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from individuals that is not regulated

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in terms of spending caps and now i can

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spend an unlimited amount of money

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on electioneering to try to influence

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the campaign and because of the power of

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these types of independent expenditure

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packs they have been termed super pacs

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now the key difference between a super

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pac and a regular pack is that the

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regular packs that we talked about have

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limitations in terms of how much money

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people can donate to them they actually

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even can't take direct money from the

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treasuries of a corporation or a labor

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union they also had limitations in terms

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of how much they could donate to an

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individual campaign

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but they could donate to a campaign a

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super pac on the other hand can take

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unlimited amounts of funds from

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individuals from other pacs and it could

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actually take money from corporate

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treasuries themselves and as long as

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they are independent of the candidates

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campaigns they don't coordinate with

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them they can spend as much money as

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they would like

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so as always it's really interesting to

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think about what is going to be the

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eventual repercussions of citizens

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united vs fec we've already seen in the

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2016 elections money approaching a

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billion dollars in terms of super pac

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money what is the influence that has on

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the democracy

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but a lot of folks might immediately

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demonize the super pac and said hey

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money was already in politics and this

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is just making it worse where now you

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have corporations that are essentially

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being able to directly contribute large

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amounts of money we've always had issues

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with foreign nationals contributing to

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our elections we've always tried to

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prevent that but a corporation can have

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ownership from around the world even if

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it's a united states-based corporation

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how do you prevent foreign interest from

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showing up through this money but on the

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