Campaign Finance Reform

This Policy Lab will engage students who are interested in campaign finance reform and/or the future of political communication on the Internet. The research projects students will undertake involve the effect of the transition from television to the internet as the principal mode of political campaigning. Research will include assessments of candidate, party and independent spending on different forms of communication in the ongoing presidential election campaign, investigation into rules for political communication on major internet platforms (e.g., Facebook, Google/YouTube, Twitter), and review of the relevant literature on campaign finance and political communication. The client is the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, DC, which will house a campaign finance reform commission that will be tracking developments during the 2016 campaign. Opportunities for research on campaign finance issues, more generally, will also be part of this policy lab in subsequent months. After the term begins, students accepted into the course can transfer from section (01) into section (02), which meets the R requirement, with consent of the instructor.

Consent of Instructor Form

view course information

Faculty

Nathaniel Persily 1

Nathaniel Persily

  • James B. McClatchy Professor of Law
  • Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
  • Co-Director, Cyber Policy Center
  • Professor, by courtesy, Political Science
  • Professor, by courtesy, Communications

Clients & Deliverables

Client: Bipartisan Policy Center

Deliverable: The Campaign Revolution Will Not Be Televised, The American Interest, 10-10-15, describing research from the Campaign Reform Practicum (Fall/Winter/Spring 2015-16).