Claim: John McCain worked to pass legislation.

Campaign finance reform is the political effort in the United States to change the involvement of money in politics , primarily in political campaigns .   Although attempts to regulate campaign finance by legislation date back to 1867 , the modern era of `` campaign finance reform '' in the United States begins with the passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act -LRB- FECA -RRB- of 1971 and , more importantly , 1974 amendments to that Act . The 1971 FECA required candidates to disclose sources of campaign contributions and campaign expenditures . The 1974 Amendments essentially rewrote the Act from top to bottom . The 1974 Amendments placed statutory limits on contributions by individuals for the first time , and created the Federal Election Commission -LRB- FEC -RRB- as an independent enforcement agency . It provided for broad new disclosure requirements , and limited the amounts that candidates could spend on their campaigns , or that citizens could spend separate from candidate campaigns to promote their political views . Specifically , it attempted to restrict the influence of wealthy individuals by limiting individual donations to $ 1,000 and donations by political action committees -LRB- PACs -RRB- to $ 5,000 . However , the Act 's provisions limiting expenditures were struck down as unconstitutional in the 1976 Supreme Court decision Buckley v. Valeo .   The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act -LRB- BCRA -RRB- of 2002 , also known as `` McCain-Feingold '' , after its sponsors , is the most recent major federal law on campaign finance , the key provisions of which prohibited unregulated contributions -LRB- commonly referred to as `` soft money '' -RRB- to national political parties and limited the use of corporate and union money to fund ads discussing political issues within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary election . However , BCRA 's provisions limiting corporate and union expenditures for issue advertising were narrowed in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life , and later explicitly struck down on constitutional grounds in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission .