ABSTRACT

This chapter considers a selective basis legislative reform of electoral finance laws and the outcome of constitutional challenges to such reforms. The emergence of one party as outright victor settles the political direction of the state and allows for the implementation of the triumphant party's programme. In the US, for example, Congress passed a set of measures aimed at eliminating perceived or real corruption among candidates for federal office in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act 2002. It was noted that the idea of political equality forms a central strand of the civic republican strain of communitarian thinking. Strategies for reducing unequal access/influence also accord with the civic republican goal of promoting a genuinely deliberative democracy, shorn of the distorting impact of private wealth. The Labour Party is committed to a further plebiscite in respect of further EU economic integration. The US Congress has recently devoted considerable effort to plug gaps in the legislative framework devised in the mid 1970s.