WI: No Post-Watergate Campaign Finance Reform?

In the aftermath of Watergate, a lot of the dirty politics that had been going on for a while came to light. Among them, the fact that Nixon got a lot of illegal donations from businessmen and corporations and so forth.

Working from memory, I think that at the time, donations from unions and corporations to parties and candidates was technically illegal, although it was normally overlooked by the law (that may be an and/or there since I can't recall if they could donate to parties with it being illegal to specifically donate to a specific candidate or if both were illegal) . If memory serves, the reform altered that rule, allowing corporations and unions to form Political-Action-Committees which could donate, and put a cap of I believe a thousand dollars on private donations (later amended to 2,000 sometime in the 90's I believe).

So what if the post-Watergate CFR didn't come to pass?
 
Bumpity: This made be a specialized subject but campaign finance reform had a very major role on American politics and its evolution and current state.
 
You could write a dissertation length piece on this one; it had a dramatic effect on campaigns in the US. You also wipe away some significant Supreme Court decisions, such as Buckley v. Valeo.

The original Federal Election Campaign Act was actually passed in 1971 -- pre-Watergate; it wasn't until after Watergate that donation limits were imposed in 1974 and partially stricken by Buckley in 1976, necessitating a 1976 amendment.

In my opinion, the idea that none of this would have been enacted in some form or another is off the wall given all of the issues with money raised in the Nixon administration; to avoid the law altogether, you have to essentially wipe away Watergate and all the Nixon finance scandals. simply having them come to light later wouldn't cut it; the enormity of what was done would have simply resulted in later legislation.

However, if you can get past all that, one thing that flows from no bill is GOP donors probably pouring tons of uncapped money into the 1976 Ford campaign, which might have been enough to swing a close election. Alternatively, it just might have given the GOP Reagan as a 1976 nominee, who would have been very well-funded for his primary challenge. A well-funded Reagan as nominee might have won in 1976, and thus been present in the WH for the economic misery of the late 1970s. That might have changed quite a lot of US history; either he copes with it well and establishes conservatism as a dominant philosophy a few years earlier or he fails, and Reagan conservatism is discredited for at least another generation.
 
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