I 
113TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1338 
To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to reassert the author-
ity of Congress to restrict spending by corporations and labor organiza-
tions on campaigns for elections for Federal office, and for other pur-
poses. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 21, 2013 
Mr. DINGELL (for himself, Mr. CONYERS, Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of 
New York, Ms. DEGETTE, Ms. SLAUGHTER, Mr. ELLISON, Mr. HIMES, 
Ms. EDWARDS, Ms. DELAURO, Mr. POLIS, and Ms. NORTON) introduced 
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on House Admin-
istration 
A BILL 
To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to 
reassert the authority of Congress to restrict spending 
by corporations and labor organizations on campaigns 
for elections for Federal office, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Restoring Confidence 
in Our Democracy Act’’. 
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SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Free and open elections are a founding 
principle of our republican form of government. 
(2) It is incumbent upon Congress to ensure 
that elections in the United States are free of cor-
ruption and the appearance of corruption. 
(3) The free flow of money in politics, as exem-
plified by the current state of affairs, is corrupting 
and will distort and disfigure our democracy. 
(4) Excessively high levels of spending on elec-
tions is fundamentally damaging to the public per-
ception of our government, and threatens the fair-
ness and integrity of our democracy. 
(5) Congress has a constitutional duty to guar-
antee a republican form of government for the 
States. 
(6) Spending record sums of money on our elec-
tions threatens the continued existence of our repub-
lican form of government. 
(7) Allowing unlimited spending on elections 
means the wealthy can crowd out other important 
voices in our political debates, thereby giving Amer-
ican citizens fewer sources of information. 
(8) Federalist 52 states that Congress ‘‘ought 
to be dependent on the people alone’’. 
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(9) Unlimited spending in our elections violates 
this principle and corrupts our government by mak-
ing elected officials more dependent on donors than 
the people. 
(10) This ‘‘dependency corruption’’ gives the 
wealthy a greater say in our democracy than the av-
erage citizen, which is contrary to the intent of the 
Founding Fathers. 
(11) Congress has the inherent power to ensure 
that elections for the government are conducted in 
a fair, honorable, and proper way to preserve our de-
mocracy and ensure the people have confidence in 
our elections and system of government. 
(12) Congress has the authority to regulate 
campaign expenditures to promote integrity, prevent 
corruption, and ensure the public has trust in our 
election system, going back to the Tillman Act of 
1907, which prohibits corporations from making di-
rect contributions to political campaigns. 
(13) In 1947, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley 
Act, which first prohibited corporations and labor 
unions from making independent expenditures in 
support or opposition to candidates for Federal of-
fice. 
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