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Jeffrey Birnbaum of Time Magazine has summarized three legal ways that are commonly used to get around funding restrictions:.
• "Independent Expenditures -- conducting "issue" campaigns that stop short of saying, "vote for candidate X".
• Soft Money - political money raised by national and state parties, though it must be disclosed, is not regulated by federal campaign finance law because it is for generic "party building".
• Tallying - the practice of dropping big checks to parties marked by "ear making" of which candidates should benefit." .
The biggest problem facing any reform legislation is the tendency of both parties to view such proposals through their own political interest for instance in the 1990, the majority senate Democrats proposed voluntary state-by-state spending limits with reduced mail rates and television time. Democrats have proposals, which ban PAC and soft money, and to limit independent expenditures on free speech grounds. They have worked towards prohibiting labor unions from spending compulsory union dues on political. .
The proposal known as McCain, had dominated all the senate's attention on campaign since it appeared in June 1996. The bill provided the following:.
• Ban on soft money.
• Closer monitoring of independent expenditures.
• Prohibition on bundling (the practice of combining numerous, smaller contributions, which one organization delivers to the campaign).
• Rise in individual contributions limits from $ 1000 to $ 2000 if other candidate does not follow that spending limits.
• Ban on contribution's from foreign nations.
Most Republicans did not support the McCain-Feingold bill because of one or more of these reasons: it called for ban on soft money, it limited raising of individual contributions limits and its failure to prohibit labor unions from spending compulsory dues on political activities.