Citation
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Quasi Campaign Finance, 70 Duke L.J. 333 (2020).
Abstract
This Article identifies and explores a third category of electoral spending: quasi campaign finance, or spending money on nonelectoral communications with voters that nevertheless relies on an electoral mechanism to be effective. Little is currently known about quasi campaign finance because no law requires its disclosure. But its use by America’s richest and politically savviest individuals appears to be rising, and it also seems to skew policy outcomes in the spenders’ preferred direction.
After introducing quasi campaign finance, the Article considers its legal status. Is it like ordinary campaign finance, in which case it could be regulated fairly extensively? Or is it like garden-variety political speech, rendering it presumptively unregulable? One argument for pairing quasi and regular campaign finance is that they share several features — who bankrolls them, the tactics they pay for, the reasons they work — and so may serve as substitutes. Another rationale is that they may both cause the same democratic injuries: corruption, the distortion of public opinion, and the misalignment of public policy. Pitted against these points is the slippery-slope objection: if quasi campaign finance may constitutionally be curbed, what political speech may not be? The Article concludes by suggesting how quasi campaign finance should be regulated.