Publicity for Congressional Campaign Funds
It is supposed that men who are nominated to the high office of a legislator for the United States—either to the Senate or to the House of Representatives—should be honest men—so honest that people are willing to trust them; but the course of legislation in the last number of years, and the evidences brought out in connection with national elections, show to the contrary. There has been a demand from some of the best quarters for a number of years that election expenses should be made public. The sixty-first Congress passed an act providing for public congressional and campaign funds after election; but what is called the Rucker bill, passed at the late session of Congress, provides for publicity before election, as well as after, and limits to $5,000 the expenditures of a candidate for representative in Congress, and to $10,000 the expenditure of a candidate for the Senate. As the New York World remarks, "No more federal elections can be purchased, except in defiance of the law."