Campaign Finance Constitutional Amendment (Congressional/State Regulatory Authority)

Current understanding

A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would grant Congress and the states express authority to impose viewpoint-neutral limits on election-related contributions and expenditures and to establish public campaign financing systems. The amendment would permit distinguishing natural persons from corporations and other artificial entities, positioning it as a structural response to Supreme Court doctrine following Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United v. FEC. Status: introduced as a joint resolution; constitutional amendments require two-thirds passage in both chambers and ratification by three-fourths of states, making enactment historically rare.

Evidence log

• 2025-03-26 — Abolish Super PACs Act: cross-connection with abolish-super-pacs-act: A statutory Super PAC ban would likely require the constitutional authority a campaign-finance amendment would establish, given Citizens United and SpeechNow.org v. FEC. (novelty: 2)
• 2025-09-11 — Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections.: Recurring proposal (introduced): joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment authorizing Congress and the states to set reasonable limits on election-related fundraising and spending and to treat natural persons differently from corporations, including barring corporate election spending — incremental relative to prior similar amendment resolutions. (novelty: 2)
• 2024-05-24 — Government by the People Act: cross-connection with government-by-the-people-act: Statutory small-donor matching sits within the same reform space that a constitutional amendment authorizing public financing systems would formally enable. (novelty: 2)
• 2025-09-17 — A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to the authority of Congress and the States to regulate contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections and to enact public financing systems for political campaigns.: Joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment authorizing Congress and the states to regulate campaign contributions and expenditures, enact public financing systems for political campaigns, and distinguish corporations from natural persons for these purposes; introduced (not yet enacted). (novelty: 3)
• 2025-09-17 — Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to the authority of Congress and the States to regulate contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections and to enact public financing systems for political campaigns.: cross-connection with fair-elections-now-act: The amendment would explicitly authorize public financing systems of the type proposed by the Fair Elections Now Act, insulating such statutes from First Amendment challenges. (novelty: 3)

Open questions

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