Ramtin Arablui and Randa Abdelfattah

I'm Ramtin Arablui.

And I'm Randa Abdelfattah.

On this episode of ThruLine, the explosion of money in elections, despite America's long history of trying to prevent it.

Part 1.

Cat and Mouse.

In 1971, there was a rush of money heading to Washington, D.C.

Literally, and infamously, suitcases full of cash all going to support the re-election campaign of President Richard Nixon.

By the 70s, it had become expensive to run political campaigns.

Television had become popular and running ads on TV cost a lot of money.

But getting in front of a mass audience was a must for politicians.

At the same time,

Congress passed its first major campaign finance bill called the Federal Election Campaign Act, or FICA.

FICA capped campaign contributions and spending for things like ads, and also forced candidates to disclose the names of anyone donating over $100.

In the weeks before the law took effect, Nixon's campaign would raise millions of dollars from secret donors.

In the end, Nixon's campaign was forced to turn over his donors list.

And when they did, volunteers from a group called Common Cause started connecting the dots between corporate donors on his list and political favors that Nixon seemed to be doling out.

The former head of American Airlines and the current chief of Goodyear Tire and Rubber told the Irvin Committee how they gave $55,000 and $40,000 respectively to the Nixon re-election committee.

Both contributions were illegal.

There's actually not a lot of campaign finance regulation before the 1970s at the federal level.

Really very lax enforcement of whatever campaign finance laws we had at the time.