Campaign Finance

“If, however, the Supreme Court will not reverse Buckley v. Valeo, it will be necessary to pass a constitutional amendment, since the Court has justified unlimited campaign funding as free speech.  Senator Ernest Hollings and I have pressed for that amendment for more than a decade.  The Court got it wrong in Buckley, and the nation has suffered ever since.  Unlimited campaign funding and soft money are corrosive enough to warrant a constitutional amendment if the Court will not recognize the mischief its ruling has created.” (Passion for Truth, 539)

Senator Specter was a firm believer in the democratic process of United States elections.  Having experienced unfair campaign finance regulations firsthand when running against the wealthy John Heinz in the Senate primary of 1976, he felt that campaign finances should be controlled to ensure equal opportunities for all candidates.  A major contributor to campaign finance imbalances was the Buckley v. Valeo ruling.  In 1976, the Supreme Court found that several proponents of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) were unconstitutional based on the First Amendment, so they got rid of a number of campaign finance limits, including limits on individual contributions.  Specter cited his campaign against Heinz as an example of how the new limit exceptions made elections unfair; some candidates were able to use unlimited independent funds while others had to follow strict restrictions.  These new policies also allowed for record level campaign spending, as seen in subsequent presidential elections.  Specter stressed that spending millions of dollars on campaigns “did little to restore the public’s confidence in the electoral process, much less our institution. "

Unhappy with the state of campaign finance after the ruling, Specter sponsored and co-sponsored many amendments focused on overturning Buckley v. Valeo and increasing government ability to limit campaign spending.  He worked closely with Senator Ernest Hollings for this, proposing new amendments in many meetings of Congress throughout the 1990s.  Though some other senators rejected his proposals, believing they violated the First Amendment, he continued to work for reform.  His efforts paid off in 2002, when a version of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill he supported was passed into law.