Campaign finance in Fort Worth, Texas and New Orleans, Louisiana
Description
This dissertation is a detailed study and analysis of election finance in Fort Worth, Texas and in New Orleans, Louisiana and the means by which candidates for the City Council in these cities raised and spent their campaign monies. It is also a close examination of the laws which constrain campaign fundraising practices and the style of campaigning within those limits imposed by the law, custom and usage. Furthermore, this dissertation comments upon the weaknesses and the strengths of the respective laws in each state as written and as enforced to regulate campaign finance. The general conclusions drawn from this study are that the laws, the style, and the means used to raise electioneering money tend to combine to influence the costs of elections and increase the participation of certain well financed business factions, especially the real estate development interests. It is the opinion of this dissertation that these tendencies are inimicable to democracy, are oligopolistic and may often contravene the public interest. Moreover, this dissertation argues for reform of the laws and practices of fundraising and for a greater role for political parties in local campaign finance as a means of controlling costs and curbing factions