Academic Research

In the mid-1970s, Congress designed the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to be a bipartisan independent regulatory agency. By congressional design, the agency’s structure is intended ...

Many legal scholars and observers perceive elected state courts in the U.S. as under siege by the politicization of judicial elections – by candidates for ...

Americans were once free to speak about politics without asking permission from the government or being forced to document their political activities for the authorities. But ...

The FirstAmendmentto the U.S.Constitution recognizes a laissez-faire policy toward speech and the press. The Framers of the Bill of Rights worried that the self-interest of politicians fostered suppression ...

One of the most controversial election-related issues in recent decades unquestionably has been campaign finance. On the heels of the Watergate scandal, campaign-finance laws at both ...

I present a model of fund-raising in repeated elections where funds are raised to deter the entry of strong challengers, and to increase the probability ...

his book does three things. First, it surveys the path of campaign finance regulations since 1971, concluding that the vast majority of provisions - ...

We investigate a simple question: what does money contributed to legislators buy? Evidence that money buys votes (and theoretical explanations for why we should expect ...

A fundamental purpose of campaign finance reform is to reduce corruption. Other goals and affects attach themselves to campaign reform, of course, such as ...

In 2004, Governor Jim Rowland of Connecticut resigned in the midst of scandal. He was accused of accepting lavish gifts and political contributions from state government ...