Chapter 36 Further Reading

Foundational Law and Theory

Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976). The Supreme Court decision establishing the contribution/expenditure distinction. Reading the majority opinion directly provides essential context for the logic underlying all subsequent campaign finance law.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010). The landmark decision enabling unlimited corporate independent expenditures. Both the majority opinion and the dissents articulate competing theories of money, speech, and democracy that frame all subsequent policy debates.

Hasen, Richard L. Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections. Yale University Press, 2016. The leading constitutional law critique of Citizens United and the Court's campaign finance jurisprudence, by one of the country's leading election law scholars.

Lessig, Lawrence. Republic, Lost: The Corruption of Equality and the Steps to End It. 2nd ed. Twelve, 2015. Accessible argument that "dependence corruption" — the systematic dependence of politicians on donors — is a structural threat to democratic governance, even in cases where no specific corrupt transaction occurs.

Empirical Research

Bonica, Adam. "Mapping the Ideological Marketplace." American Journal of Political Science 58.2 (2014): 367–386. The foundational paper on using donor network analysis to map ideological positions of candidates and contributors. Methodologically rigorous and highly influential.

Page, Benjamin I., Larry M. Bartels, and Jason Seawright. "Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans." Perspectives on Politics 11.1 (2013): 51–73. Documents systematic differences between the policy preferences of wealthy donors and the general public, with implications for who campaign finance serves.

Gilens, Martin. Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. Princeton University Press, 2012. Comprehensive empirical analysis showing that policy outcomes correlate with the preferences of affluent citizens more than with those of median-income citizens. Directly relevant to the question of what large-donor dominance in campaign finance produces.

Barber, Michael J. "Ideological Donors, Contribution Limits, and the Polarization of American Legislatures." Journal of Politics 78.1 (2016): 296–310. Research showing that individual large donors are more ideologically extreme than PAC donors or small donors, and that candidates dependent on large individual donors tend to be more extreme legislatively.

Dark Money and Outside Spending

Mayer, Jane. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. Doubleday, 2016. The most comprehensive journalistic investigation of the Koch Brothers network and the dark money infrastructure of the conservative political movement. Essential reading for understanding how dark money organizations actually work.

Confessore, Nicholas, et al. "Buying Power." New York Times, October 10, 2015. Data journalism analysis of the small number of ultra-wealthy families dominating super PAC fundraising, available free online.

Vogel, Kenneth P. Big Money: 2.5 Billion Dollars, One Suspicious Vehicle, and a Pimp — On the Trail of the Ultra-Rich Hijacking American Politics. PublicAffairs, 2014. Journalistic account of super PAC and dark money fundraising culture in the post-Citizens United era.

Small-Dollar Fundraising

Malbin, Michael J., et al. "Small Donors, Large Donors and the Internet: The Case for Public Financing After Obama." Campaign Finance Institute, 2009. Pre-ActBlue analysis of small-donor fundraising that accurately predicted subsequent trends.

Bowers, Jake. The Democracy Effect: How the New Grassroots Fundraising Is Changing American Politics. (Working Paper, 2020.) Research on the policy and political implications of ActBlue's transformation of Democratic small-dollar fundraising.

Data Resources

OpenSecrets (Center for Responsive Politics): opensecrets.org — The most comprehensive FEC data platform for non-technical users. Free for basic research; bulk data available.

FollowTheMoney (National Institute on Money in Politics): followthemoney.org — Tracks state-level campaign finance. Essential for state legislative and gubernatorial races.

ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer: projects.propublica.org/nonprofits — Searchable 990 tax filings for all US nonprofits, including 501(c)(4)s. Essential for dark money tracing.

FEC Bulk Data: fec.gov/data/browse-data — Direct download of FEC data in CSV format. Complete but requires technical handling.

Campaign Finance Institute: cfinst.org — Research-oriented analysis of campaign finance data, with particular strength on small-donor and public financing research.

The Sunlight Foundation Archive: sunlightfoundation.com — Archived campaign finance data tools and investigative resources.

FCC Political File: publicfiles.fcc.gov — Required disclosure of political broadcast advertising purchases, including dark money issue ads. Essential complement to FEC data for complete race-level spending analysis.