Corrupt Practices Act of 1925

The US Supreme Court's decision in Newberry v. United States, 256 US 232, which held that Congress lacked the constitutional power to regulate primary elections, prompted Congress to enact the Corrupt Practices Act of 1925. The act is significant as it represented a comprehensive revision of existing campaign legislation. The new law extended the prohibition against corporate contributions covered by the Till- man Act of 1907 to include "anything of value," and it criminalized making and accepting corporate contributions. The Court upheld the act in a second attack in a case that charged a political committee with conspiracy in accepting contributions and making expenditures to influence the election of presidential and vice presidential electors in two states. Burroughs is among several cases the Court decided in the 1930s in which the justices expressed strong intent to bow to the wishes of Congress.