Foreword
Senators John McCain (AZ-R) and Russell Feingold (WI-D) first introduced their bipartisan campaign finance reform bill in 1997, following a presidential election the previous year during which both political parties raised and spent unprecedented amounts of unregulated "soft money." The Senators argued that their bill would close this soft-money loophole that allowed political parties to bypass Federal limits on campaign donations by raising money under less-stringent State laws, then using that money to support Federal candidates.Following years of fierce battles in Congress, both the House and Senate passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) in 2002 (see Campaign Finance Reform,…
