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Tax-Financed Campaigns: A Speech-Chilling, Costly, and Failed Policy
January 1, 2018  •  By IFS Staff  •    •  

Tax-financed campaigns are government-operated programs that seek to replace or supplement private, voluntary campaign contributions with government grants of taxpayer dollars to candidates who meet certain requirements. These programs, often tagged with euphemistic names such as “democracy dollars” or “clean elections,” take many forms. Some provide tax dollars to candidates based on the donations they’ve received while other programs provide…

The Fraud of “Publicly” Financed Elections

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November 4, 2006   •  By Brad Smith   •  ,

Would government financing of political campaigns really remove "deep-pocket special interests" from politics.  No.  Click the headline for more.

Bait & Switch: More on the Voters First Pledge

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September 29, 2006   •  By Brad Smith   •  ,

Yesterday three organizations - Common Cause, Public Campaign, and Public Citizen, issued a release touting a ...

Has Tax Funding of Presidential Elections Been a Success?

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August 21, 2006   •  By Brad Smith   •  ,

Last week, the campaign finance pro-regulatory community launched a coordinated media effort to drum up support for increasing the federal budget earmark for presidential campaign subsidies.  ...

A Question of Priorities

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July 28, 2006   •  By Brad Smith   •  ,

Senator Russ Feingold and Congressmen Chris Shays and Marty Meehan have introduced legislation to increase taxpayer subsidies to political campaigns by as much as ...

The Federalist Society’s Free Speech and Election Law Practice Group’s 2006 Election Law Series

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July 17, 2006   •  By IFS staff   •  ,

Public Financing of Campaigns on July 26th 2006 at the National Press Club

The Federalist Society is hosting ...

Do Public Funding Programs Enhance Electoral Competition?
March 1, 2005   •  By IFS staff   •  ,

o there you have it. Clean election laws (which provide full public funding to candidates who agree to forego private contributions altogether and abide by ...

Campaign Finance Reform: Early Experiences of Two States That Offer Full Public Funding for Political Candidates
May 1, 2003   •  By IFS staff   •  ,

In both Maine and Arizona, the number of legislative candidates who chose to use public financing for their campaigns increased greatly from 2000 to 2002. In ...

Does Cleanliness Lead to Competitiveness? The Failure of Maine’s Experiment with Taxpayer Financing of Campaigns
October 16, 2002   •  By Matt Nese   •  ,

Although it is a state of only modest size and influence, Maine finds itself on the cutting edge of the national movement to restructure campaign finance through ...

Government Financing of Campaigns: Public Choice and Public Values
August 1, 2002   •  By IFS staff   •  ,

Following the passage of McCain-Feingold in 2002, advocates of additional campaign finance regulation hope to persuade Congress and some states to pass legislation that requires government financing of ...

Is Cleanliness Political Godliness?: Arizona’s Clean Elections Law after Its First Year
November 1, 2001   •  By IFS staff   •  ,

In 1998, Arizona voters passed the Citizens Clean Elections Act. Its purpose was to eliminate the alleged deleterious effect of private money on state politics: the ...

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