# Hard Money **Hard money** is the term of art for political contributions that are **subject to the full [[Federal Election Campaign Act]] regulatory framework**: contribution caps, disclosure requirements, source restrictions (no foreign nationals, no corporate or union treasury funds to candidates). The term is defined by contrast to [[Soft Money]] (party-committee funds historically exempt from FECA limits; banned at the national level by [[Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act]] in 2002) and to [[Dark Money]] (post-2010 independent-spending vehicles that are undisclosed). ## The Hard-Money System A hard-money contribution must be: - **From a permissible source**: U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, or a registered PAC funded by individual contributions; no general corporate or union treasury funds to candidates; no foreign nationals. - **Within applicable limits**: in the 2025-26 cycle, the limit is **$3,500 per individual per candidate per election** (primary and general election counted separately, so $7,000 total per cycle); $5,000 per multicandidate PAC per candidate per election; the aggregate-donor cap was eliminated by [[McCutcheon v. FEC]] (2014). - **Disclosed**: contributions above $200 (the FEC itemization threshold) are publicly reported with contributor name, address, employer, and occupation. ## What Hard Money Funds The hard-money system funds the **regulated portion** of American federal elections: - Candidate campaign committees (the official campaign of each candidate) - National party committees (RNC, DNC, NRSC, DSCC, NRCC, DCCC and their state affiliates) - Multicandidate PACs registered with the [[Federal Election Commission]] - [[Leadership PACs]] maintained by elected officials Hard-money receipts are the basis of FEC reporting and the principal data source for journalism and academic research on American campaign finance. The fec.gov database is overwhelmingly populated by hard-money filings. ## The Shrinking Hard-Money Share The hard-money system has steadily lost share of total election spending across the past 25 years. In 1996, hard money was the principal channel for federal political spending. By 2024, hard-money spending was substantially exceeded by: - **Independent expenditures** (regulated under [[Citizens United v. FEC]] / [[SpeechNow.org v. FEC]]): unlimited spending by [[Super PACs]] and 501(c)(4) entities - **Coordinated party committee spending** (regulated but with substantially higher limits than direct candidate contributions) - **Self-funding** (no limits after [[Buckley v. Valeo]]) - **Dark-money issue advocacy** (substantially unregulated for non-electioneering categories after [[FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life]]) The result is that hard money is now the most regulated, most disclosed, and most marginal component of the total political-spending picture. A donor seeking maximum political influence routes most spending through the unlimited-contribution, undisclosed, or indirectly-coordinated channels rather than through hard-money contributions to candidates. ## Significance for the KB Hard money is the **regulated baseline** against which other categories are defined. Understanding the campaign-finance system requires understanding what is *not* regulated (most of it, after the post-2010 dismantling of the BCRA framework) and why the regulated portion shrank. The contemporary right-wing political-financial ecosystem the KB tracks operates substantially **outside** the hard-money system. Donor networks like the [[Koch Donor Summit Model]] coordinate hundreds of millions of dollars per cycle through [[Super PACs]], [[501(c)(4)]] entities, and donor-advised funds. Direct hard-money contributions to candidates are a small fraction of this total — important for the candidate-relationship dimension but marginal for the aggregate-spending dimension. ## See Also - [[Soft Money]] — the historically-exempt party-committee category - [[Dark Money]] — the post-2010 undisclosed-spending category - [[Independent Expenditure]] — the unlimited-spending category - [[Federal Election Campaign Act]] — the underlying statute - [[Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act]] — 2002 amendments raising hard-money limits and banning soft money - [[Buckley v. Valeo]] — the 1976 doctrinal foundation - [[McCutcheon v. FEC]] — the 2014 case eliminating aggregate hard-money limits - [[Federal Election Commission]] — the agency that administers hard-money disclosure - [[Campaign Finance Timeline]] — full chronological view - [[Campaign Finance]] — Foundations hub - [[Hard Money Politics]] — the different-sense "hard money": gold-standard, sound-money, and crypto ideology - [[Sound Money]] — the monetary-policy doctrine that crypto inherited from the gold-standard tradition