Campaign Finance and the effects of the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

In the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court held that political speech of corporations is entitled to the same rights as political speech by individuals. They ruled that restrictions on independent expenditures by corporations and labor unions are unconstitutional on Frist Amendment grounds. In this thesis I test two hypotheses. First that outside spending in the 2012 Presidential election was abnormally high because of Citizens United and second, that the increase in outside spending benefited the Republican Party in the 2012 Ohio House elections. I find that Citizens United is the reason for the increase in spending by outside groups, and that this benefited the Republican Part in the 2012 Ohio House elections.