Campaign financing in the United States is governed by a byzantine set of rules shaped by decades of legislation, regulations, and often inconsistent court rulings. Even experts struggle to navigate this ever-evolving system, which is replete with jargon like coordinated versus uncoordinated spending, soft versus hard money, bundling, and electioneering communications. In The Fundamentals of Campaign Finance in the U.S.: Why We Have the System We Have, Diana Dwyre and Robin Kolodny help us make sense of it all with a comprehensive analysis of the history and structure of campaign finance law. Their book serves as both a handy reference for specialists and an accessible introduction for others, with helpful tables illustrating key legal developments in this area.

Dwyre and Kolodny trace the evolution of campaign finance across three chapters, focusing primarily on the post-Watergate era, when modern campaign finance law emerged. They then dissect the behavior and incentives of key players—donors, candidates, and parties—with an additional chapter on disclosure rounding out the discussion.

The body of law that emerged in the wake of Watergate was, to use the technical term, messy. With the goal of reducing corruption and the appearance of corruption, the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act, its 1974 amendments, and the landmark Supr