An
indirect form of regulating paid political advertising in many countries is a
limit on campaign spending. Such limits apply widely, and, since television
advertising will usually be the largest item in the campaign budget, it is here
that the greatest impact will be felt. In Canada, for example, spending limits
mean that parties can never use up their allotted share of advertising time.
Sometimes these limits are made explicit by law. In the 1994 South African
election, for example, it was stated that all political advertising was subject
to any legal limitations on campaign spending.
Venezuela,
estimated to have the highest per capita spending on political advertising in
the world, not surprisingly has no limit on spending. The United States,
generally regarded as the home of political advertising, has a fairly complex
system to regulate campaign financing, especially in presidential elections.
The 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act (amended in 1974 and 1976) established
equal federal financing of presidential elections and federal subsidy of
primaries. It also set ceilings on what candidates could spend on TV
advertising, although these were removed when the law was amended. In an
important 1976 case - Buckley v Valeo - the Supreme Court upheld the principle
of public financing but struck down limits on spending by "political
action committees" (PACs) if these were independent from the presidential
campaigns themselves. The court also decided that there would be no limit on
spending by individuals.[i]
The
effect of this is to create routes whereby presidential campaigners can bypass
the limitations, and PACs are increasingly used as a workaround to ceilings on
spending. Donors can give money to parties or political action committees
rather than to the candidates themselves. It also means that a wealthy
individual, such as the independent Ross Perot in 1992, can stand without any
spending cap at all.
All
political advertisements in the United States must carry a disclaimer
indicating who paid for them.[ii]
Japan
is another country that makes the distinction between parties and candidates in
its control of campaign spending. Candidates themselves are not permitted to
buy broadcasting time. Parties, on the other hand, can buy advertising time,
provided that their advertisements call for support for the party, not for
specific candidates.
Controls
on campaign finance can be used as a means of giving opportunities to poorer
parties in an environment of paid advertising. In Mongolia's first
parliamentary elections in 1990, for example, each party was allocated the same
amount of free and paid time. But the government subsidized the paid time of
the smaller parties.
It is
sometimes proposed that this "topping up" option be used to equalize
campaign spending - as a way of enforcing spending limits but not in a
heavy-handed manner. The idea would be that spending limits are set. If one
party exceeds them, then the others would receive a top-up out of public funds.
[i] Howard R.
Penniman and Austin Ranney, "The Regulation of Televised Political
Advertising in Six Selected Democracies", (Committee for the Study of the
American Electorate, n.d.)
[ii] Robert M.
Entman, "The Media and U.S. Elections: Public Policy and Journalistic
Practice", in Media and Elections: a
Handbook, eds. Yasha Lange and Andrew Palmer (Dusseldorf: European
Institute for the Media, 1995)
