Ramtin Arablui and Randa Abdelfattah

The first major campaign finance law passed in the United States was the Tillman Act in 1907, when Teddy Roosevelt was accused of accepting large corporate donations for his presidential run in exchange for political favors.

The Tillman Act prevented corporations from making direct contributions to influence federal elections.

And for most of the 20th century, corporate spending was seen in both law and culture as a potentially corrupting force in elections.

Eventually, unions were also limited for making candidate contributions.

But it wouldn't be until after Watergate and amendments to FICA that experts say real reforms were put in place.

It's really 1974 amendments that put the teeth into federal campaign finance law.

And they do a bunch of different things.

One is they apply contribution limits across the board for everyone.

So anytime you're exchanging money in the campaign finance system, there's a limit on how much you can give.

FICA put limits on how much individuals could give to candidates, how much they could give to political parties, and how much parties could also give to candidates.

So if you wanted to give to a candidate, you had a limit of $1,000.

If you want to give to a party, there's a limit.

If a party wanted to give to a candidate, there was a limit.

It also had disclosure rules.

So that meant every time a candidate receives money above a certain amount, they have to disclose it.

Every time they spend money in a significant way, they have to disclose that.

And anyone who's really active in federal campaign finance politics has to register.

And then, in addition, there were expenditure limits, which meant that candidates could only spend so much.

So as a candidate, you don't have to worry about your competitor outspending you because you were both capped.

The next year, in 1975, a group of libertarian and conservative politicians filed a lawsuit arguing that fundraising and spending limits made it harder for newcomers to run against favored incumbents.