ABSTRACT
In practice developments in party financing are determined to a considerable extent by decisions of the Court. Virtually all of the law concerning party finances was originally judge-made law. The founding fathers saw potential dangers in party financing coming from a completely different direction. Public financing was considered to be a constitutionally dubious practice in the early years of the Federal Republic. The issues raised by public party financing concern more than just money, which in any case are an expression of power and simultaneously a means of expanding power. The justices distinguished between the total expenditures of the parties and the costs of election campaigns and declared that only the reimbursement of "necessary costs of a reasonable election campaign" was acceptable; a general party financing was not permissible. With around 60 million eligible voters in the new united Germany, this means for each of the three categories of election about 300 million DM.
