prohibiting contributions to funds were the laws against bribery, treatby corporations chartered by the ing, undue influence, intimidation United States, and prohibiting con- and personation. The best recent tributions by all corporations to corrupt practices acts proceed on a funds to be used in connection with contrary principle. The acts define the election of federal officers. By the practices declared to be legal and the beginning of 1911 sixteen states prohibit all others. Thus, the Wishad enacted laws prohibiting contri- consin corrupt-practices act of 1911 butions by corporations to state prohibits disbursements for political campaign funds, and other states purposes, whether in connection with passed similar legislation in 1911. a primary or general election, by In 1910, the federal government any candidate except: (a) for his passed an act requiring the publica- own personal hotel and traveling extion after election of the receipts penses; (b) for payments which he and expenditures of individuals or may make to the state pursuant to organizations, aiding or opposing law; (c) for contributions to his candidates for federal office in two duly registered personal campaign or more states. This law would ap- committee; (d) for contributions to parently require the filing of state- his party committee; and (e) for the ments by such organizations as the purposes for which a party commitAmerican Federation of Labor, and tee may lawfully make disbursethe Prohibitionists and Socialists, ments, when the candidate has no but only the Republican and Demo- personal campaign committee. After cratic congressional campaign com- the primary, no candidate for elecmittees actually published any state- tion to the United States Senate may ments. In 1911, Congress passed a make any disbursements on behalf much more stringent act, providing of his candidacy, except contribufor publication before and after both tions to his party committees, for primaries and elections, of all re- his own actual necessary personal ceipts and expenditures by or on be- traveling expenses, and for postage, half of any candidate for election telephone and telegraph expenses, to a federal office, and limiting the and for payments which he may total amount that might be expended make to the state pursuant to law. in both primary and election by any The Wisconsin law of 1911 further candidate for Congress to $5,000, prohibits disbursements by party and by any candidate for the Senate and personal campaign committees to $10,000. The federal law, how- except: (a) for maintenance ever, does not restrict the amount headquarters and for hall rentals, inthat may be expended on behalf of cident to the holding of public meeta candidate by others or that may ings; (b) for necessary stationery, be contributed to the funds of the postage and clerical assistance to be political parties. During 1911, ten employed for the candidate at his states passed campaign-publicity | headquarters or at the headquarters laws, raising the total number of of the personal campaign committee, states now possessing such measures incident to the writing, addressing on their statute books to 37. The and mailing of letters and campaign only states now remaining without literature; (c) for necessary expenses any kind of legislation for campaign incident to the furnishing and printpublicity or limitation of political ing of badges, banners and other inreceipts and expenditures are Rhode signia, to the printing and posting of Island, Delaware, North Carolina, hand bills, posters, lithographs and Mississippi, Louisiana, Utah, Illi- other campaign literature and the nois, Michigan, New Mexico and Ne- distribution of the same through the vada. mails or otherwise; (d) for campaign advertising in newspapers, of The Wisconsin Law. Corruptpractices legislation was originally periodicals or magazines; and (e) characterized by the definition of for actual necessary personal exelection practices declared to be cor- penses of public speakers. rupt and the provision of penalties All persons having bills or claims for offenders. Such for example, against candidates or party commit tees must present them within ten days after the day of the primary or general election in connection with which the charge was incurred. No bills or claims presented later are to be paid. No person or group of persons other than the candidate, or his personal campaign committee, or a party committee may make any disbursements for political purposes otherwise than through a personal campaign committee or a party committee, except for expenses incurred for rent of hall or other rooms, for hiring speakers, for printing, for postage, for advertising, for distributing printed matter, for clerical assistance, and for hotel and traveling expenses. Contributions by corporations to campaign funds are expressly forbidden. So also are contributions by candidates or committees to religious, charitable or fraternal organizations, but regular subscriptions or contributions may be paid during a campaign as usual. No payments whatsoever may be made on account of services rendered on primary or general election day, or for the expense of transportation of any voter to or from the polls. less all the statements relating to his nomination have been filed, and an officer chosen at a general election may not retain his office, if found guilty of a neglect or violation of the law, except that in the cases of United States senators or congressmen, or members of the state legislature, the judge of the court in which the proceedings against an officer are brought shall transmit a copy of his findings to the legislative body to which the candidate has been chosen without a final adjudication of the case in court. Finally, the Wisconsin act limits the sums that may be lawfully expended by or on behalf of any candidate for nomination and election to public office. The limitations are based, not upon the number of voters to participate in the elections for the various offices, as in California under the act of 1909, nor upon a percentage of the salary of the office sought, as under the Oregon law of 1908, but upon the legislature's estimates of maximum reasonable expenditures. A candidate for the United States Senate is limited to $7,500 ($10,000 under the federal law of 1911), for Congress to $2,500 ($5,000 under the federal law), for governor, judge of the Supreme Court or state superintendent of schools to $5,000, for other state offices to smaller sums. Furthermore, the state central committee is limited to $10,000 in excess of sums paid by it on behalf of candidates and reckoned in the calculation of their personal expenditures. Other States.-This is the most expenditures. comprehensive and drastic act yet passed in any American state. All of the ten states which passed corrupt-practices acts in 1911, except Maine, provide for publication of receipts and expenditures after the primary as well as after the general election, but none follows the example of Wisconsin in providing for publicity before the primary and thereafter continuously until after the general election. Several of these states, however, follow the Wisconsin example in placing a limit upon the total amount of lawful expenditures by or on behalf of candidates for public office. Massachu The Wisconsin act also regulates the publication of political advertisements, provides for the declaration of ownership of periodical publications by candidates, and for publicity pamphlets for the use of candidates at the primary or general elections after the style of the Oregon candidates' publicity pamphlets. The most important features of the act, however, are the requirements in the matter of publicity of campaign contributions and Statements must be filed by candidates and committees on the second Saturday after the first disbursement is made, and thereafter on the second Saturday of each month until all disbursements and promises have been accounted for, and also on the Saturday preceding any primary or general election. All items of $5.00 or more must be separately accounted for, and each statement after the first must contain a summary of all preceding statements. The name of a candidate chosen at a primary election or otherwise is not to be printed on the official ballot un setts, New Jersey and Ohio pre- violate the law, by forfeiture of ofscribe a scale of maximum expendi- fice. tures in nomination and election As a result of the corrupt-practices campaigns for the various offices, legislation of 1911, no fewer than 21 and North Dakota limits expendi- states now prohibit campaign contritures to 15 per cent. of the annual butions by corporations, and require salary of the office sought in the the publication of campaign receipts primary and to the same in the gen- and expenditures after the primary eral election campaign. Massachu- as well as after the general election. setts also limits lawful expenditures Although 36 states require publicity to $25 per thousand votes cast for after the general election, not more all candidates for the office sought than half that number limit the at the last preceding election, and amount of campaign expenditures, New Jersey to 25 per cent. of the and the experiment of pre-primary annual salary. North Dakota makes and pre-election publicity has but provision similar to that of Wiscon- been begun. The experiment of apsin for the publication of candidates' propriating money out of the funds publicity pamphlets during the pri- of the state for the use of political mary and general election campaigns. parties, attempted by the Colorado Most of the states specify what dis- legislature in 1909 and held unconbursements may lawfully be made stitutional by the courts, has not by candidates and require the mak- been repeated. In general, howing of all other political expenditures ever, recognition of the fact that pothrough a personal campaign or par- litical campaigning is growing too ty committees. Most of them, also, expensive is becoming wide-spread, penalize delinquent candidates by and a remedy is being sought by the omitting their names from the offi- statutory limitation of expendicial ballot, and elected officers who tures. APPORTIONMENT W. F. WILLCOX Increase. Colorado, Florida, 16 10 6 4 6 42 The Act of Reapportionment.-At its special session Congress passed Alabama, and the President signed a bill fixing the number of representatives for the next ten years at 433, with the possibility of two more in case both Arizona and New Mexico should be admitted to the family of states. Under the new law there are to be 42 more members in the House of Representatives than there were in the preceding decade. The average population of a district, 211,877, is greater by 17,695 than the average population of a district under the Each of the other 21 states reearlier law. This increase in the ceives its present number. size of the House of Representatives Former Methods of Apportionment. was warmly opposed both in the-In the method of apportionment a House and in the Senate, the main argument in its favor being that it was necessary in order to prevent any state from receiving a smaller number of members than it previously had. Total Dur slight change was introduced. ing the early history of the country the number to be used as a divisor into the population of each state was assumed arbitrarily as a round number and one representative assigned Increases in Representation. The to a state for each whole number in states increasing the number of their the quotient. Thus if 40,000 were representatives were as follows: the divisor a state having any popu lation between 160,000 and 200,000 tives apportioned to some one state, would receive four representatives. "Alabania paradox." The New Method.-The method In 1840 the plan was changed to give a representative for each fraction of introduced in 1910 assumed that the more than one half. Under the con- divisor was a continuous quantity dition just supposed, a state having between certain limits, changing, any population between 140,000 and that is, by indefinitely small incre180,000 would receive four Represen- ments. The critical points at which the tatives. In 1850 the plan of fixing decimal part of the quotient for each the divisor arbitrarily was aban- state passes one-half can be easily doned for the plan of reaching it by determined and divisors were selected dividing the population of all the midway between each two critical states by the assumed number points. A series of tables was thus of representatives. Representatives obtained each apportioning one more were assigned for each unit in the representative than its predecessor series of quotients found by divid- and each apportioning one represening the population of each state by tative for every major fraction and this quotient, and then one for each none for any minor fraction, a comfraction in order of size until the re- bination of advantages theoretical quisite number of representatives and political, which led to these was apportioned. By this method tables receiving practically no critirepresentatives were sometimes giv- cism in the debates and made it en for remainders of less than one- possible for the first time in recent half and at other times not given for years for the discussion in Congress remainders of more than one-half. to center on the political questions Occasionally it happened that an in- involved without digressing into an crease in the size of the House by examination of the method of apone would decrease the representa- portionment itself. |