Most campaign finance reform proposals focus on legislative or regulatory cures. Serious thought should be given instead to encouraging the parties to assume control of their candidates' campaign finance practices. Based on the logic of court decisions giving the parties the right to promulgate criteria for voting in their primaries, the parties would appear also to have legal power to impose campaign finance rules, including expenditures ceilings, on candidates who seek to run under the party's banner. A model set of party campaign finance rules is sketched in the article.
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References
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1. “Recent reforms in the election process have aided immeasurably in opening the process to more people and have begun to reduce the influence of special interests. The limitations on campaign contributions and the public financing of presidential elections are two reforms which have worked very well. Business political action committees continue to spend excessively, however. Further reform in this area is essential.”“The 1980 Democratic National Platform” (Democratic National Committee, 1980), p. 14. “We must work to end political action committee funding of federal political campaigns. To achieve that, we must enact a system of public financing of federal campaigns.”“The 1984 Democratic National Platform” (Democratic National Committee, 1984), p. 41.
2.
2. Albert Hunt, “Cash Politics,”Wall Street Journal, 26 July 1982.
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3. U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Rules and Administration, Hearings on Campaign Finance Reform Proposals of 1983, 98th Cong., 1st sess., 1983, p. 400.
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4. 450 U.S. 107 (1981).
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5. 770 F.2d 265 (CA 2, 1985).
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6. See Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944).
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7. 424 U.S. 1 (1976).
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8. Zechariah Chafee, Government and Mass Communications (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1965), p. 709.
