Federal Corrupt Practices Act
Encyclopedia
The Federal Corrupt Practices Act (also known as the Publicity Act) was a federal law of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 enacted in 1910 and amended in 1911 and 1925. It remained the nation's primary law regulating campaign finance in federal elections until the passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act
Federal Election Campaign Act
The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 is a United States federal law which increased disclosure of contributions for federal campaigns. It was amended in 1974 to place legal limits on the campaign contributions...

 in 1971. Created by President William H. Taft.(27th President)

The Federal Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) was enacted on June 25, 1910 and codified at 2 U.S.C. Section 241. It built upon the prohibition on corporate contributions contained in the Tillman Act of 1907
Tillman Act of 1907
The Tillman Act of 1907 was the first legislation in the United States prohibiting monetary contribution to national political campaigns by corporations....

.

The 1910 Act established campaign spending limits for political parties
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 in House
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

s. It was the first federal law to establish public disclosure of financial spending by political parties (but not candidates) by requiring the national committees of political parties to file post-election reports regarding their contributions to individual candidates and their own individual expenditures. However, the 1910 Act only covered single-state political parties and election committees, carried few penalties and was rarely enforced.

On August 19, 1911, the FCPA was amended to extend the Act's requirements to U.S. Senate candidates and primary election
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....

s. The 1911 amendments also required financial disclosure by candidates for the first time, and established limits on the amount of money candidates were allowed to spend on their campaigns. House campaign expenditures were held to $5,000 and Senate expenditures to $10,000, or the amount established by state law (whichever was less).

But then the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

 ruled in Newberry v. U.S.
256 U.S. 232 (1921) that the congressional authority to regulate elections did not extend to party primaries or nominations, thus striking down the 1911 amendment's spending limits.

On February 28, 1925, the Federal Corrupt Practices Act was revised and strengthened. The amendments extended the FCPA's coverage to multi-state parties and election committees, and required that financial disclosure reports be made quarterly. It also established a requirement that any contribution over $100 be reported. The amendments also raised Senate campaign spending limits to $25,000. But this stronger version failed to provide for adequate regulation of campaign finance. The law provided for no regulatory authority to establish the manner of reporting or its disclosure to the public, and set no penalties for failure to comply. The law did not regulate total contributions, which encouraged parties and donors to set up multiple committees and make multiple donations (all under $100) to evade the law's limits. Enforcement was left up to Congress, which rarely acted.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the reporting requirements of the FCPA against a constitutional challenge grammarin Burroughs v. U.S. 290 U.S. 534 (1934).

In 1941, the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Classic
United States v. Classic
United States v. Classic 313 U.S. 299 was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that the United States Constitution empowered Congress to regulate primary elections and political party nominations procedures—but only in cases where state law made primaries and nominations part of the...

,
313 U.S. 299 (1941) upheld the Acts' spending limits in federal elections. The court limited its ruling, however, by concluding that the congressional power to regulate extended only in cases where state law made primaries and nominations part of the election and/or whenever the primary effectively determined the outcome of the election.

The FCPA was repealed by the passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. It was no longer in force on April 8, 1972.
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