Supreme Court strikes down overall limits on political contributions.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court, in a
5-4 decision, ruled Wednesday that limits on the total amount of money
individuals can give to candidates, political parties and political
action committees are unconstitutional.
The major ruling, which was hailed by Republican congressional
leaders as a First Amendment victory, removes the cap on contributions,
which was set at $123,200 for 2014. It does not change limits, though,
on individual contributions for president or Congress, currently set at
$2,600 per election.
Chief Justice John Roberts announced the decision, which split the court's liberal and conservative justices.
“Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so too
does much of what the First Amendment vigorously protects,” Roberts
wrote in the majority opinion. “If the First Amendment protects flag
burning, funeral protests and Nazi parades – despite the profound
offense such spectacles cause – it surely protects political campaign
speech despite popular opinion.”
The overall limits "intrude without justification on a citizen's
ability to exercise `the most fundamental First Amendment activities,"'
Roberts said, quoting from the court's seminal 1976 campaign finance
ruling in Buckley v. Valeo
Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the outcome of the case, but
wrote separately to say that he would have gone further and wiped away
all contribution limits.
Others, though, described the ruling as a major blow to vital campaign finance rules.
Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the dissenting side, took the
unusual step of reading a summary of his opinion from the bench and said
the “decision eviscerates our nation’s campaign finance laws.”
Anna Galland, executive director of MoveOn.org, said Wednesday's
decision "has seriously threatened our democracy by allowing ultra-rich
individuals like Shaun McCutcheon and the Koch brothers to effectively
buy as many members of Congress as their bank accounts allow."
“The Roberts Court has weakened America’s democracy and contributed
to a system of legalized bribery by allowing big money to swamp the
voices of regular Americans and dramatically alter the outcome of
elections," she added in a written statement.
Congress enacted the limits in the wake of Watergate-era abuses to
discourage big contributors from trying to buy votes with their
donations and to restore public confidence in the campaign finance
system.
But in a series of rulings in recent years, the Roberts court has
struck down provisions of federal law aimed at limiting the influence of
big donors as unconstitutional curbs on free speech rights.
Most notably, in 2010, the court split 5-4 in the Citizens United
case to free corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they wish
on campaign advocacy, as long as it is independent of candidates and
their campaigns. That decision did not affect contribution limits to
individual candidates, political parties and political action
committees.
Republican activist Shaun McCutcheon of Hoover, Ala., the national
Republican Party and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
challenged the overall limits on what contributors may give in a
two-year federal election cycle. The total is $123,200, including a
separate $48,600 cap on contributions to candidates, for 2013 and 2014.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called the
decision in that case “an important first step toward restoring the
voice of candidates and party committees and a vindication for all those
who support robust, transparent political discourse.”
Limits on individual contributions, currently $2,600 per election to candidates for Congress, are not at issue.
Relaxed campaign finance rules have reduced the influence of political parties, McConnell and the GOP argued.
McCutcheon gave the symbolically significant $1,776 to 15 candidates
for Congress and wanted to give the same amount to 12 others. But doing
so would have put him in violation of the cap.
Nearly 650 donors contributed the maximum amount to candidates, PACs
and parties in the last election cycle, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics.
The court did not heed warnings from Solicitor General Donald
Verrilli Jr. and advocates of campaign finance limits that donors would
be able to funnel large amounts of money to a favored candidate in the
absence of the overall limit.
The Republicans also called on the court to abandon its practice over
nearly 40 years of evaluating limits on contributions less skeptically
than restrictions on spending.
The differing levels of scrutiny have allowed the court to uphold
most contribution limits, because of the potential for corruption in
large direct donations to candidates. At the same time, the court has
found that independent spending does not pose the same risk of
corruption and has applied a higher level of scrutiny to laws that seek
to limit spending.
If the court were to drop the distinction between contributions and
expenditures, even limits on contributions to individual candidates for
Congress, currently $2,600 per election, would be threatened, said Fred
Wertheimer, a longtime supporter of stringent campaign finance laws.
