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Campaign Finance in the United States of America deals with the measures by which the funds for the electoral campaigns is raised and collected by the US political parties. The Election Campaign Finance Law revised in 2002 by Federal Election Commission demands the identity of the person, who donates an excess of 200 dollars for the promotion of a candidate. The party committees are also required to provide an explanation of the expenditures made for their election campaigns to the Election Commission. The public funding at the Federal level for the purposes of Campaign Finance is limited to subsidies. The new guidelines set for the purpose of campaign finance are known as Clean Money and Clean Election.
According to the First Quarter 2007 Federal Election Commission Filings, the funds raised by the Democrats equal to 78,470,733 dollars while that raised by the Republicans is 53,204,874 dollars. According to this report, the candidate to raise the maximum fund for the 2008 US Election in the first quarter is Democrat candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. California has been the top fund-raising state according to this report. A few of the renowned donors in this first quarter include celebrities like Quincy Jones, Barbra Streisand, Paul Simon.
The contributions that come from the individuals are limited by law to certain stipulated amounts, which they cannot exceed. The political action committees also raise certain amounts of campaign finance, but again the amounts are limited by law. The amounts received from these sources are referred to as “Hard Money”. The individuals can donate the money through websites launched by the party candidates.
Campaign Finance for the presidential election also comes from public funding. These finances are often referred to as the “Soft Money”. The money contributed for the purpose of campaign from the unions or corporations cannot be used for direct advocacy of a candidate.
The third form of campaign money collection is through 'bundling'. The 'bundlers' gather money from donors from within a community or an organization and present them for the campaign expenses. Nearly 2000 bundlers are reported to have collected funds for the three most influential candidates belonging to the Democratic and the Republican Party during the campaign of 2008 US Election.
In the last presidential election held in the year 2004, it has been noted that the funds for campaigns donated by the political parties have been taken over by the 527 Groups, which is a tax-exempt organization in America. 527 Group has been especially created to monitor the expenses of the elections held in America.
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