Federal Election Campaign Act

Federal Election Campaign Act

Other short titles	Campaign Finance Act
Long title	An Act to promote fair practices in the conduct of election campaigns for Federal political offices, and for other purposes.
Acronyms (colloquial)	FECA
Nicknames	Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971
Enacted by	the 92nd United States Congress
Effective	April 7, 1972
Citations
Public law	92-225
Statutes at Large	86 Stat. 3
Codification
Titles amended	2 U.S.C.: Congress
U.S.C. sections created	2 U.S.C. ch. 14 § 431 et seq.
Legislative history
Introduced in the Senate as S. 382 by John O. Pastore (D-RI) on May 6, 1971 Committee consideration by Senate Finance Passed the Senate on August 5, 1971 (88-2) Passed the House on November 30, 1971 (372-23, in lieu of H.R. 11060) Reported by the joint conference committee on December 1, 1971; agreed to by the Senate on December 14, 1971 (Agreed, in lieu of S.Rept. 92–580) and by the House on January 19, 1972 (334-20, in lieu of H.Rept. 92–752) Signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon on February 7, 1972

The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA, Pub.L. 92–225, 86 Stat. 3, enacted February 7, 1972, 52 U.S.C. § 30101 et seq.) is the primary United States federal law regulating political campaign spending and fundraising. The law originally focused on increased disclosure of contributions for federal campaigns. The S. 382 legislation was passed by the 92nd U.S. Congressional session and signed by the 37th President of the United States Richard Nixon on February 7, 1972.

In 1974, the Act was amended to place legal limits on the campaign contributions and expenditures. The 1974 amendments also created the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

The Act was amended again in 1976, in response to the provisions ruled unconstitutional by Buckley v. Valeo, including the structure of the FEC and the limits on campaign expenditures, and again in 1979 to allow parties to spend unlimited amounts of hard money on activities like increasing voter turnout and registration. In 1979, the FEC ruled that political parties could spend unregulated or "soft" money for non-federal administrative and party building activities. Later, this money was used for candidate-related issue ads, which led to a substantial increase in soft money contributions and expenditures in elections. This in turn led to passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2003 ("BCRA"), banning soft money expenditure by parties. Some of the legal limits on giving of "hard money" were also changed by BCRA.

In addition to limiting the size of contributions to candidates and political parties, FECA also requires campaigns and political committees to report the names, addresses, and occupations of donors of more than $200.

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