The Campaign Process and Finance

Running for major office in the United States typically involves multiple stages, usually a primary election within a candidate's own party followed by a general election against candidates from other parties. Federal law limits how much a person may donate directly to a candidate's own campaign, contribution limits the Supreme Court upheld in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), but the Court later ruled, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), that the government cannot limit independent political spending by domestic corporations, unions, and other organizations, since the First Amendment protects this kind of spending as political speech; federal law still separately bans foreign nationals, including foreign corporations, from making this kind of independent expenditure at all.

This explanation is AI-generated and can occasionally be wrong. 🚩 Report