Why American elections cost so much

WITH nearly every American election cycle new spending records are broken. This autumn's midterm elections are nearly nine months away, but already candidates in Kentucky's Senate race have raised $19.4m and spent $7.3m. In the 2012 cycle candidates in the Massachusetts Senate race alone spent over $85m. That is small change compared with that year's presidential contest, in which $2 billion was spent (the total cost of the 2012 elections, including congressional races, topped $7 billion). Not every country shells out so much on its democracy: in France, for instance, presidential candidates' campaign spending is capped at $30m. Why are American polls so pricey?

Some blame Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision in 2010 that freed corporations and workers' unions from spending limits on independent political broadcasts (ie, those that are not co-ordinated with particular candidates' campaigns). That led to a big increase in spending in the 2012 election cycle, which in nominal terms was the most expensive ever. Much of it came from "super-PACs"—political action committees that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, provided they disclose their donors—and catchily named "501(c)(4)s", non-profit groups that can spend slightly less freely than super-PACs but do not have to disclose their donors. But American elections have been expensive for a long time. Measured as a share of GDP, the presidential election of 1896 saw more spending than the four next-most expensive presidential elections combined. (The year before that campaign Mark Hanna, a senator, had said: "There are two things that are important in politics. One is money and I can't remember what the other one is.")

In 2012 Barack Obama's campaign made much of its ability to attract donations of $200 or less, and Mr Obama outraised his opponent Mitt Romney in that category by $233.2m to $79.8m. But both campaigns drew most of their money from large donors, as did the biggest super-PACs: the right-leaning Restore Our Future got $30m from Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate, and his wife, while Priorities USA Action, which supported Mr Obama, raked in millions from unions and law firms. Political spending is not unlimited, however. Corporations and unions may not contribute directly to candidates' campaigns, but the Supreme Court has long held that if a person or group wants to pay for advertisements that express their political views, that is a form of speech, and thus protected by the First Amendment. So the simplest reason why American elections are so expensive is that spending on advertisements is protected by the right to freedom of speech.

Not everyone is happy with this state of affairs. Citizens United was decided by a 5-4 majority, and in a stinging dissent the now-retired Justice John Paul Stevens warned that the majority's decision "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation" by "dramatically enhanc[ing] the role of corporations and unions—and the...interests they represent." Others worry about the growth of "dark money", donations that come from undisclosed or well-shielded donors. Meanwhile the non-coordination requirement for "independent" spending is sometimes poorly enforced, and the border between campaigns and independent groups is less distinct than it could be. Despite such concerns, campaign costs are unlikely to fall. A super-PAC supporting the as-yet-unannounced candidacy of Hillary Clinton in a presidential election still more than two years off has already raised more than $4m. That's a lot of money for a notional candidate, but probably much less than 1% of what the 2016 Democratic nominee will eventually spend.

The economist