History...
American timeline-
More timeline events can be found at: www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/campaign-finance-timeline-dark-money
- 1758- George Washington Spends £39 (about $8,000 today) on alcohol to give to voters on election day for the Virginia House of Burgesses.
- 1872- Jay Cooke donates $50,000 to the republican party, Ulysses S. Grant comments, "Never before was a candidate placed under such great obligations to men of wealth."
- 1896- Mark Hanna, President William McKinley's campaign manager asks corporations for donations correlating with how much they affect the general prosperity in the US.
- 1952- Californian Senator Richard Nixon delivers a speech in which he defended more than $18,000 in secret donations, including his daughters dog, Checkers.
- 1962- John F. Kennedy proposes that the American public match funding for presidential candidates. Congress passes on the proposal.
- 1995- President Bill Clinton and his top aides set up a plan to raise "soft money" (which is unregulated), and the Democratic Party raises over 122 million through that plan.
- 2002- President George W. Bush signs the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, banning soft money, along with corpoate and union spending for ads about candidates in the weeks before the election.
More timeline events can be found at: www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/campaign-finance-timeline-dark-money