ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 analyzes Common Cause’s focus on campaign finance reform, an issue area that spans over forty years of successes and setbacks. It is the source of significant achievements—the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974 and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002—yet was blamed for a misperception of Common Cause as a single-issue group. Campaign finance reform has been a priority on Common Cause’s issue agenda for almost forty years. Thus, it is an investigative lens to study strategic changes across the organization’s three-phase narrative. Although national level achievements have been steadily eroded, state and local level policies are in place and are withstanding challenges.
