Chapter 36 Quiz

Multiple Choice

1. The Supreme Court's decision in Buckley v. Valeo (1976) established that: - A) Corporations have the same First Amendment rights as individuals in political spending - B) All campaign contributions are protected speech and cannot be limited - C) Contribution limits are constitutionally permissible, but expenditure limits are not - D) The FEC was unconstitutionally structured and needed to be reformed

Answer: C. Buckley upheld contribution limits as a legitimate anti-corruption measure but struck down expenditure limits as unconstitutional restrictions on political speech, creating the contribution/expenditure bifurcation at the heart of modern campaign finance law.

2. Which of the following statements about Super PACs is correct? - A) They can give unlimited amounts directly to candidate committees - B) They must disclose their donors and cannot legally coordinate with candidate campaigns - C) They are prohibited from running negative advertising against candidates - D) They can only receive donations from individual citizens, not corporations

Answer: B. Super PACs can receive unlimited contributions (from individuals, corporations, unions) and spend unlimited amounts independently, but must disclose donors and are legally prohibited from coordinating with candidate campaigns.

3. "Dark money" in campaign finance refers to: - A) Contributions made in cash to avoid electronic tracking - B) Foreign contributions illegally funneled into domestic campaigns - C) Political spending by 501(c)(4) organizations that are not required to disclose their donors - D) Contributions made after campaign finance reporting deadlines

Answer: C. Dark money specifically refers to spending by 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofits, which can engage in political activity as a non-primary purpose without disclosing their donors to the FEC.

4. Under current FEC rules, which of the following contributions does NOT need to be itemized in FEC filings with the donor's name, address, and employer? - A) A $500 individual contribution to a candidate committee - B) A $1,500 PAC contribution to a candidate committee - C) A $150 individual contribution to a candidate committee - D) A $2,500 contribution to a Super PAC

Answer: C. Contributions under $200 to candidate committees do not require itemization in FEC filings. Contributions over $200 must include donor identifying information.

5. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA/McCain-Feingold) was primarily designed to address: - A) Foreign interference in US elections - B) The growth of "soft money" contributions to national political party committees - C) Coordination between Super PACs and candidate campaigns - D) The disclosure gap for 501(c)(4) political spending

Answer: B. BCRA's primary innovation was banning soft money — unlimited contributions to national party committees — which had grown dramatically in the 1990s as the primary vehicle for large-donor political influence.

6. Which of the following best describes the analytical value of donor network analysis using FEC data? - A) It allows analysts to predict which candidates will win their elections based on fundraising totals - B) It reveals patterns of shared donor interests, elite network integration, and cross-candidate funding coordination that are invisible in any single FEC filing - C) It enables campaigns to identify and contact wealthy donors who haven't yet given to their race - D) It provides a complete picture of all political money including dark money contributions

Answer: B. Donor network analysis reveals structural patterns — which candidates share donors, how industry interests are distributed across the political system, which donors are bridges across multiple campaigns — that are not visible when analyzing individual filings.

7. ActBlue's significance in Democratic campaign finance is primarily that it: - A) Raises money for the Democratic National Committee exclusively - B) Enables corporations to make unlimited contributions to Democratic causes - C) Lowered the transaction cost of small-dollar giving, dramatically expanding the number of Democratic donors - D) Provides matching funds for Democratic candidates who reject large contributions

Answer: C. ActBlue is a payment processor that enables frictionless small-dollar donation, including recurring monthly giving, which has dramatically expanded the scale and breadth of the Democratic small-dollar donor base.

8. In the Garza-Whitfield race analysis, which of the following patterns creates the clearest tension with Whitfield's populist "real Texas vs. Washington establishment" framing? - A) The fact that Whitfield has received contributions from Texas-based small businesses - B) The high proportion (51 percent) of Whitfield's itemized contributions coming from outside Texas, including from financial and private equity donors - C) The fact that a Democratic-aligned Super PAC has run ads attacking Whitfield - D) Whitfield's campaign accepting coordinated support from the NRSC

Answer: B. The most analytically damaging tension is between Whitfield's "real Texas" framing (implicit claim of local constituent support against Washington establishment) and the reality that majority of his large-donor funding comes from out-of-state, including from finance and private equity donors who would typically be considered "elite" by populist definitions.

Short Answer

9. Explain the "disclosure shell" structure that enables large donors to contribute to political campaigns without having their names appear in FEC filings. Trace the path of the money through the structure.

Model Answer: The disclosure shell works through a chain of entities. An individual donor (step 1) contributes to a 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofit (step 2). The 501(c)(4) is not required to disclose its donors to the FEC because it is not a "political committee." The 501(c)(4) then contributes to a Super PAC (step 3). The Super PAC is required to disclose its donors — but its disclosed donor is the 501(c)(4), not the original individual. The Super PAC spends on independent expenditures (step 4) that appear in FEC filings. The FEC public record shows the 501(c)(4) as the source of the Super PAC's money, but the original individual donor is effectively hidden behind the 501(c)(4) layer.

10. ODA's outside spending tracker shows that in the San Antonio media market for the Garza-Whitfield race, candidate committee spending represents approximately 24 percent of total political spending. What are the analytical implications of this finding for how we should characterize "the Garza campaign" and "the Whitfield campaign"?

Model Answer: If candidate committee spending is only 24 percent of total political spending, then "the Garza campaign" and "the Whitfield campaign" — understood as the candidate committees — are the visible tip of much larger political communication icebergs. The majority of what voters in San Antonio hear and see about the race comes from entities the candidates legally cannot coordinate with. This has several analytical implications: (1) Candidates cannot fully control their public messaging — aligned Super PACs and party committees run communications that reflect their own priorities; (2) Accountability for race-specific messaging is diffused across many organizations; (3) The financial advantage of a candidate who has superior outside support may not be visible in candidate committee comparisons; (4) "Who spent more" analyses based on candidate committees alone can be substantially misleading about the actual information environment voters experienced.

True/False with Explanation

11. True or False: Citizens United enabled unlimited contributions directly to political candidates.

False. Citizens United enabled unlimited independent expenditures by corporations and unions — spending they make independently, not in coordination with candidates. Direct contributions to candidate committees remain subject to the existing limits established under FECA. The decision specifically did not eliminate contribution limits; it addressed the separate category of independent political spending.

12. True or False: The small-dollar fundraising revolution has produced a donor base for political campaigns that is representative of the general American public.

False. Small-dollar donors, while more numerous and less elite than traditional large donors, are still not representative of the general public. Research consistently shows small-dollar donors are more educated, more politically engaged, more ideologically extreme, and more affluent than non-donor citizens. The revolution has democratized fundraising relative to its prior state (dominated by large donors) but has not produced a donor base that mirrors the median voter.