Presidential Elections: Campaign Finance and Reform

Filing requirements.

The Center for Responsive Politics, a research organization tracking money in U.S. politics, produces OpenSecrets.org. OpenSecrets is a comprehensive resource for federal campaign contributions and lobbying data. See National Donor Profiles for a database which provides the total contributions for the Top 10,000 national givers in U.S. politics. See 2012 Presidential Election Race for both total presidential candidate spending and sources of funds.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) administers and enforces the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) which governs the financing of federal elections. The duties of the FEC include disclosing campaign finance information, enforcing the provisions of the law, such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections. The site offers articles, guides, forms, and texts of laws and regulations. See Campaign Finance Reports & Datafor more detailed data.

Brookings experts examine campaign finance legislation and the impact it may have on election outcomes. The site includes Congressional testimonies, news, research reports, and podcasts.

Produced by the UCLA School of Law, the Center for Governmental Studies, and the California Voter Foundation, and supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Campaign Disclosure Law Database contains statutes and regulations in 105 categories from 50 states, the District of Columbia and the Federal Election Commission. Users can search by category and state. The database is current as of December 31, 2006.

CFI is a think tank for campaign finance policy. Its website provides the texts of election data and research plus important laws, regulations, and court cases.

“The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law is a non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on the fundamental issues of democracy and justice.” The Campaign Finance Reform page links to downloadable publications, court cases, and research reports.