McCain–Feingold

Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002

Long title	An act to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 to provide bipartisan campaign reform.
Acronyms (colloquial)	BCRA
Nicknames	McCain–Feingold, Shays–Meehan
Enacted by	the 107th United States Congress
Effective	November 6, 2002
Citations
Public law	107-155
Statutes at Large	116 Stat. 81 thru 116 Stat. 116
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as the "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001" (H.R. 380) by Chris Shays (R–CT) on June 28, 2001 Passed the House on February 14, 2002 (H.R. 2356) (240–189 [R – 41–176, 5 NV ; D – 198–12, 1 NV ; I – 1–1, 0 NV]) Passed the Senate as the "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002" on March 20, 2002 (60–40 [R – 11–38, 0 NV ; D – 48–2, 0 NV ; I – 1–0, 0 NV]) Signed into law by President George W. Bush on March 27, 2002
United States Supreme Court cases
McConnell v. FEC FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. Davis v. FEC Citizens United v. FEC

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA, McCain–Feingold Act, Pub.L. 107–155, 116 Stat. 81, enacted March 27, 2002, H.R. 2356) is a United States federal law that amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which regulates the financing of political campaigns. Its chief sponsors were Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John McCain (R-AZ). The law became effective on 6 November 2002, and the new legal limits became effective on January 1, 2003.

As noted in McConnell v. FEC, a United States Supreme Court ruling on the BCRA, the Act was designed to address two issues:

Although the legislation is known as "McCain–Feingold", the Senate version is not the bill that became law. Instead, the companion legislation, H.R. 2356—introduced by Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), is the version that became law. Shays–Meehan was originally introduced as H.R. 380.

In the aftermath of Watergate, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, which put new limits on contributions to campaigns. Four years later, the FEC ruled that donors could donate unlimited money to political parties (but not the candidates themselves) if the party used that money for "party building activities" such as voter registration drives, but not to directly support candidates. Both the Republican and Democratic parties nonetheless used this money to support their candidates, and money donated to parties became known as soft money. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush vetoed a bill passed by the Democratic Congress that would have, among other things, restricted the use of soft money. President Clinton pushed for a similar bill, but was unable to get both houses to agree on one bill.

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