Funding the Presidential Nominating Conventions: How a Trickle of Private Money Turned Into a Flood

The role of corporate money has become so obscene that in the 2016 election, a corporationnot financially supporting political conventions is apparently a newsworthy case of “man bites dog. But given the longstanding federal ban on corporate support for nominating conventions, why are corporations in the business of paying for our political conventions at all? That’s the subject of the Campaign Legal Center’s report, Funding the Presidential Nominating Conventions: How a Trickle of Private Money Turned into a Flood. Over the years, the Federal Election Commission has shredded the laws that explicitly ban corporate spending on conventions. Now, corporate interests and wealthy individuals gain political access and influence over government officials by spending tens of millions of dollars to fund nominating conventions. The public is rightfully discouraged and disgusted by how they are being shut out of their democracy. Public funding of the conventions was the right idea that was undermined by the FEC and eventually Congress.