Forty years ago, five men broke into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, and American political campaigns were forever changed. Congress created the Federal Election Commission, and centralized regulation of campaign financing began. Since the Watergate scandal, we have experienced two cycles of regulating and deregulating campaign finance. In the interim, technology and political messaging have changed a lot, most recently with the turn to advertising on social media. The regulations have not kept pace. In this seminar, we will study the statutes and cases governing campaign finance in America and the latest research into their effects. We will discuss how to design a campaign finance system that maximizes social welfare and ask whether the current system needs some tweaks or wholesale replacement. In the second half of the semester, we will take a deep dive into the one area of campaign finance regulation that is also under attack: disclosure.
