The Independent View: 2014 Spending Bill Increases Campaign Finance Limits

On October 9th 2014, in a rare 4-2 vote, the long-gridlocked FEC approved a joint request from the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee that asked for permission to create a separate organization to finance the quadrennial conventions.

A provision included at the end of the massive spending bill released by Congress on Tuesday evening would exponentially increase some political contribution limits.

Beginning on page 1,599 of the 1,603-page document, under a heading entitled “Other Matters”, the legislation details the creation of three additional accounts to help fund party conventions (a national committee of a political party, other than a national congressional campaign committee of a political party), the building or renovation of party headquarters (a national committee of a political party including a national congressional campaign committee of a political party), the relief of legal debts and election recount costs (a national committee of a political party including a national congressional campaign committee of a political party).

Campaign finance watchdog groups Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center and Common Cause, flagged the provision about an hour after the appropriations bill was released.

“This makes the Great Train Robbery look like a petty misdemeanor,” said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer. “These provisions have never been considered by the House or Senate, and were never even publicly mentioned before today.”

While national party committees have a contribution limit of $32,400 per year for each donor, the three new accounts would have their own separate, higher contribution limits, up to $97,200 each per year.

In effect, that means that an individual could give a total of up to $648,000 to the National Republican Committee or the National Democratic Committee during each two-year election cycle. A wealthy couple could pour almost $1.3 million into a party committee coffer.

Proponents of raising the limits for political party committees have argued that it could be a way to combat the outside money flowing into campaigns, through super-PACs and non-profit groups, and allow politicians the opportunity to control the message.

Common Cause, meanwhile, said in a statement the new accounts would open up more opportunities for corruption.

“Does anyone believe that the people providing such donations will neither expect nor receive something in return? Of course not,” said a statement from a spokesman.

“These changes take us another step back toward the pre-Watergate era, when political money was essentially unregulated and the nation endured a wave of corruption unlike any in our history,” the organization said.

Other campaign finance watchdogs also rebuked the move, calling it a bipartisan “backdoor deal.”

“Rather than pass legislation to fix the corrupt existing campaign finance system, this Congress that couldn't pass a bill to simply increase transparency for campaign contributions decided to raise the price for its attentions,” said Meredith McGehee, a policy director at the Campaign Legal Center. “The price for seat at the table in Washington just went up again and even further out of reach for all but the very richest of Americans.”