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Abstract: Laws restricting campaign financing raise exceedingly difficult First Amendment questions. These difficulties arise for several reasons. For one, the federal laws and regulations governing campaign finance are intricate, lengthy, and technical. In addition, the Supreme Court decisions reviewing these laws are often fractured and confused, and sometimes even seemingly inconsistent. Both the complexity of the laws and the uncertainty of the decisions, in turn, reflect a deeper difficulty: whether regulating campaign financing in an attempt to make the election process more democratic is consistent with another fundamental precept of American democracy-the First Amendment right of individuals to express their views on all matters of public concern. In this introductory essay, I first review the relevant Supreme Court decisions. Next, I discuss two major problems that have plagued federal campaign finance law-the "soft money" and "issue advocacy" loopholes. I then briefly describe how recent amendments seek to plug these loopholes. Finally, I propose a theoretical framework for examining the constitutionality of campaign finance regulation. I suggest that campaign finance regulation falls in the intersection of two domains-the public discourse domain, which government is constitutionally prohibited from managing, and the election domain, which government has a constitutional duty to regulate. This view explains the profound difficulty presented by campaign finance laws. It also suggests that a solution can be found if the Court carefully attends to the needs of both domains.
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