The Federal Corrupt Practices Act, also known as the Publicity Act, was a federal law of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
that was enacted in 1910 and amended in 1911 and 1925. It remained the nation's primary law regulating campaign finance in federal elections until the passage of the
Federal Election Campaign Act in 1971. The Act was signed by President
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...
on June 25, 1910.
The Act built upon the prohibition on corporate contributions in the
Tillman Act of 1907
The Tillman Act of 1907 (34 Stat. 864) was the first campaign finance law in the United States. The Act prohibited monetary contributions to federal candidates by corporations and nationally chartered (interstate) banks.
The Act was signed int ...
and was codified at 2 U.S.C. Section 241.
Provisions
The Act established campaign spending limits for
political parties
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...
in
House general elections. It was the first federal law to require public disclosure of spending by political parties, but not candidates, by requiring national committees of political parties to file post-election reports on their contributions to individual candidates and their own expenditures. However, it covered only multi-state political parties and election committees, carried few penalties, and was rarely enforced.
1911 Amendments
On August 19, 1911, the Act was amended to extend it to
Senate candidates and to
primary elections
Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the c ...
. The amendments also required financial disclosure by candidates for the first time and established limits on the amount of money that candidates were allowed to spend on their campaigns. House campaign expenditures were limited to $5,000 and Senate expenditures to $10,000, but states could set lower limits.
However, the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
ruled, in ''
Newberry v. U.S.''
256 U.S. 232 (1921), that Congress's authority to regulate elections did not extend to party primaries or nominations and so struck down the spending limits in the 1911 amendment.
1925 Amendments
On February 28, 1925, the Act was revised and strengthened to extend its coverage to multi-state parties and election committees and to require financial disclosure reports to be made quarterly. Any contribution over $100 now had to be reported, and the Senate campaign spending limit was raised to $25,000.
However, the stronger version failed to provide for adequate regulation of campaign finance. The law provided for no regulatory authority to establish the manner of reporting or its disclosure to the public, and it set no penalties for failure to comply. The law did not regulate total contributions, which encouraged parties and donors to set up multiple committees and make multiple donations, all under $100, to evade the law's limits. Enforcement was left up to Congress, which rarely acted.
The US Supreme Court upheld the reporting requirements in ''
Burroughs v. United States'' 290 U.S. 534 (1934).
In 1941, the Supreme Court, in ''
United States v. Classic,'' 313 U.S. 299 (1941), upheld the spending limits in federal elections. It limited its ruling, however, by concluding that Congress's power to regulate extended only if state law made primaries and nominations part of the election and/or the primary effectively determined the outcome of the election.
Repeal
The Act was repealed by the
Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971
The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA, , ''et seq.'') is the primary United States federal law regulating political campaign fundraising and spending. The law originally focused on creating limits for campaign spending on communicatio ...
, with effect on April 8, 1972.
References
*
*{{cite book , title=Campaign Finance Reform: A Sourcebook , editor1-first=Anthony , editor1-last=Corrado , editor2-first=Thomas E. , editor2-last=Mann , editor3-first=Daniel R. , editor3-last=Ortiz , editor4-first=Trevor , editor4-last=Potter , editor5-first=Frank J. , editor5-last=Sorauf , location=Washington, D.C. , publisher=The Brookings Institution , year=1997 , isbn=978-0-8157-1581-8 , chapter=Document 24: Federal Corrupt Practices Act, 1925, 43 Stat. 1070 (February 28, 1925) , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5mKC8BI-TxkC&pg=PA42 , pages=42–6
1910 in American law
1911 in American law
1925 in American law
United States federal election legislation
68th United States Congress
Campaign finance in the United States
Campaign finance reform in the United States