This article by Timothy Noah, which appears in The New Republic, is an unusually clear article about campaign finance in federal elections. It illustrates that large for-profit corporations have generally not spent money commenting on candidates for federal office, even though Citizens United v FEC permits them to do so.

The article explains that the large spending for Super-PACS is from individuals, and is a result of the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C., Circuit decision in Speechnow.org v FEC. That decision was handed down on March 26, 2010, and was a unanimous ruling of all the full-time U.S. Court of Appeals judges in that circuit. Speechnow v FEC lets individuals give as much money as they wish to committees that make independent expenditures about candidates for federal office.

The only groups in the U.S. that can’t receive unlimited donations to make independent expenditures are political parties that have been recognized by the FEC as national committees. There are eight such national committees: Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Constitution, Socialist, Reform, and Natural Law. Americans Elect is not a “national committee”.

As the Noah article explains, in the past, before the McCain-Feingold law put limits on political parties, rich individuals made large donations to political parties, but that is now illegal, so instead they give it to PAC’s and other non-party organizations. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

On March 30, Nebraska LB 1035 passed the Senate on second reading. This is the bill to make it easier for a party to remain on the ballot. Currently, it must pass the 5% vote test every two years. The bill says that when a party passes the 5% vote test, it is then ballot-qualified for the next four years.

It is somewhat likely the bill will pass third reading on April 3.

On March 29, the Green Party and the Constitution Party jointly filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, alleging that the New Mexico deadline for petitions to qualify a party is too early. That deadline is the first Tuesday of April, which this year is April 3. Here is the complaint. The case is Constitution Party of New Mexico v Duran.

In New Mexico, newly-qualifying parties nominate by convention, not by primary, so there seems to be no election-administration reason for the deadline to be so early. In the past, the deadline for a new party to qualify in New Mexico has been in October, then September, and then July. In 1995 it was moved to April, apparently because the majority party in the legislature, the Democratic Party, was angry that in the 1994 gubernatorial election, the Green Party gubernatorial candidate had polled 10.3% and apparently caused the defeat of the Democratic Party nominee. So, in 1995, the legislature made several hostile changes to the election law relating to minor parties, including moving the petition deadline from July to April, and also doubling the number of signatures needed for non-presidential minor party nominees to get on the November ballot.