However, despite these acts, one must not abandon many factors that have made it or make it difficult to reform the campaign finance system. For example, the ruling of the Supreme Court case Buckley vs. Valeo certainly proved that reform was difficult. The outcome of the case was that it saw the FECA as operating unconstitutionally. It was ruled that the act was breaching the first amendment of the constitution which is freedom of speech. As a result, now the only way possible under the act to limit spending is through matching funds. It would be interesting to see how Edwards would conduct his campaign having accepted federal funding for 2008. Clearly, under the US constitution campaign reform is made difficult.
Secondly, during 2002 the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act was passed, by a somewhat reluctant bush. This act also wanted to limit expenditure of presidential campaigns. It followed on with banding the soft money that FECA had allowed and increased hard money of individuals to $2000. There is no doubt that the act did have some influence in reforming the campaign finance system.
Another ruling that has proved the difficulty of reform has been that of McConnell vs. Feingold. In this case, attempts were raised about the issue of soft money. Twelve critics argued that banning the use of soft money was not necessary and was again breaching the first amendment to the constitution. Despite these attempts, the Supreme Court ruled that soft money was to be remained banned and also the use of issue advocacy (another restriction imposed by the act). Consequently, such a case proves again that attempts to reform the campaign system in the US still remains rather difficult.
Before, the banning of soft money, it was generally misused under many guises. Instead of parties using the money for them, the finance has been used to help the presidential candidates in their bid. This certainly calls into question the effectiveness of the act. Examples of the misuse of soft money have been that of Clinton. He rented a number of times Lincolns bedroom. FECA main aim seemed to have backfired in controlling expenditure of candidates.
Aside from all these flaws that have been identified under such acts which were aiming to reform the campaign finance, there have been general issues adding to the difficulty too. The aspect of front loading has made it extremely complicated in many respects. Front loading has not only moved primaries to earlier dates, but has extended the focus on money. The invisible primary has become more important for raising money for candidate’s bids. So consequently, creating ‘war chests’ has shifted far earlier in the campaign, where activities such as T.V air time and events take place. Air time does not come cheap in the US and unlike the UK it actually costs substantial sums for spots. Therefore, with the onset of frontloading, the chances for improvements to the campaign system are facing greater challenges.
Just, to add a counter-argument to this, although reform is desirable, many have posed strong arguments, suggesting that expenditure of large sums of money in the US is necessary. Democracy requires that it is bought and the only way to enable this is for candidates to show their abilities in so doing.
A final prominent factor to failure of reform to the US money system, must take into account what are known as 527 groups. These groups have been named under which their tax code number appears to be. For instance, they are autonomous from the presidential campaign, although they have been raising substantial amounts of money for the elections over years. Under any circumstances, they seem to be uncontrollable and it is apparent that groups such as these are almost a threat to chances for finance improvements in the US. An example of such group includes, ‘the swift boat veterans for truth’.
To reach a conclusion, the question why is it so difficult to reform campaign finance is one that is very broad. The points listed, has shown that improvements are made extremely difficult and that in spite of the mere attempts they have exerted less influence than they have created greater flaws to the campaign system. So from perspective, reforming the US presidential campaign system is difficult and will remain difficult most importantly due to the constitution itself.
