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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…

Meet the New Legislature, Same as the Old Legislature: A quantitative analysis of the Connecticut Citizens’ Election Program
October 22, 2012   •  By Joe Trotter   •  ,

The 2008 election cycle was the first in Connecticut in which candidates for state legislature could choose to accept taxpayer dollars to fund their campaigns, ...

Nebraska Done with Matching Funds

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August 10, 2012   •  By Sarah Lee   •  

It nearly went unnoticed but a court in Nebraska has decided to follow the Supreme Court’s ruling in Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett, ...

Public Perception and the “Appearance of Corruption” in Campaign Finance
December 21, 2011   •  By Jason Farrell   •  , ,

The Center for Competitive Politics, in cooperation with University of Missouri Professor Jeff Milyo, included several questions in the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), a ...

Challenging the presumptions of America’s Fiscal Crisis: Follow the Money

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September 28, 2011   •  By Jason Farrell   •  ,

Americans for Campaign Reform, a reform advocacy group chaired by former US Senators Bill Bradley, Bob Kerrey, Warren Rudman and Alan Simpson (of the ...

Clean Elections and Scandal: Case studies from Maine, Arizona & New York City
September 23, 2011   •  By Jason Farrell   •  ,

On June 27, 2011 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett that the election policies of several states ...

Don’t Feed the Alligators: Government Funding of Political Speech and the Unyielding Vigilance of the First Amendment
September 21, 2011   •  By Joe Trotter   •  , , ,

‘Every dollar I spend over the threshold starts feeding the alligator trying to eat me.’’ That was the description of Arizona’s system for public financing of political ...

Comments of CCP President Sean Parnell to the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights
April 12, 2011   •  By Sean Parnell   •  ,

The Center for Competitive Politics (CCP) submitted comments to an April 12, 2011 hearing of the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, ...

Testimony of CCP President Sean Parnell to the Maine Joint Committee on Veterans and Legal Affairs
March 28, 2011   •  By Sean Parnell   •  , ,

While government-financed political campaigns are often touted as a way to reduce the influence of organized interest groups, there is little reason to believe this ...

Testimony of CCP Research and Government Relations Director Laura Renz to the Maryland Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee
March 10, 2011   •  By Laura Renz   •  , ,

Taxpayer financed campaigns like the one proposed in SB657 are always touted with sweeping promises of reforming the nature of elections and improving the way ...

What Does Research Say About Public Funding for Political Campaigns?
August 1, 2010   •  By IFS staff   •  ,

The issue of public funding for political campaigns is heating up as the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to take up the case of Arizona ...

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