WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The U.S. Supreme
Court on Wednesday struck down a key pillar of federal campaign finance
law by allowing donors to give money to as many political candidates,
parties and committees as they wish.
In the latest in a series of decisions by the high court that have
given big-money donors more influence in U.S. elections, the
justices rejected the overall limits on how much individuals can
donate during a federal two-year election cycle.
The ruling — a 5-4 decision with the court's more conservative
justices in the majority — could have an immediate impact on the
2014 midterm elections, in which Republicans are likely to keep
control of the House of Representatives and are seeking to gain six
Senate seats to take over that chamber.
The decision does not affect rules that limit donors from giving
$2,600 per candidate in primaries and another $2,600 in general
elections. But it does eliminate the "aggregate" donation limits of
$48,600 to candidates and $74,600 to state and local political party
committees during each two-year cycle.
Instead of being limited to giving candidates and party groups a
total of $123,200 for the 2014 elections, a wealthy donor who wanted
to give the maximum amount to every House and Senate candidate and
every political committee in his or her party could now give nearly
$6 million, according to public advocacy groups.
Republicans, who generally favor lifting finance limits, hailed the
decision as a boost to political free speech.
"It is the right of the individual, and not the prerogative of
Congress, to determine how many candidates and parties to support,"
said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a long-time
critic of campaign finance restrictions who is in an expensive
battle for re-election and was a litigant in the case.
Democrats, who typically argue for tighter restrictions based on
concerns that the wealthy otherwise could have undue influence over
American politics, blasted the court's ruling.
"I'm concerned about what it means for our democracy. Our founders,
they sacrificed their lives, their liberty, their sacred honor for a
democracy: a government of the many, not a government of the money,"
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said
during an appearance at the Reuters Health Summit in Washington.
"It's totally ridiculous. But that is the path that this court is
on," Pelosi added, citing the court's landmark 2010 ruling in
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which cleared the
way for unlimited spending by independent groups in federal
elections.
The Citizens United decision supercharged spending on the 2012
elections, as independent "Super PACs" and nonprofit groups created
in the wake of the ruling — most of them Republican-leaning — spent
nearly $1 billion on the presidential and congressional elections.
Such conservative groups failed in their push to oust Democratic
President Barack Obama, but they did help reshape U.S. politics: In
some cases the new, independent groups became as crucial to campaign
funding and messaging as political parties.
Because it lifted some donation limits for parties, Wednesday's
ruling is likely to help the parties maintain their historical
influence in campaigns even as independent groups continue to pour
millions of dollars into elections, analysts and party officials
said.
"This allows us to go to our donors and say, 'Look, instead of only
being able to give to nine Senate candidates, you can give to the 14
that are most in play,'" Republican National Committee Chairman
Reince Priebus said on a conference call.
In Washington, the ruling also could pressure lobbyists who form the
backbone of the city's fundraising circuit to write more checks to
campaigns.
Tax lobbyist Ken Kies, who has already donated more than $123,200 to
Republican candidates and committees, said Wednesday he was worried
that he will be faced with a flood of fundraising pitches now that
the donation cap is no longer in place.
"I'm horrified. I'm delisting my phone number and destroying my
email address. Possibly legally changing my name," Kies said in an
email.
FREE SPEECH VS. CORRUPTION
Politicians' reactions to the ruling reflected the crux of the
arguments before the court, and the disagreements over campaign
finance among the justices themselves.
Chief Justice John Roberts led the court's majority in saying that
the aggregate limits on campaign fundraising violated the First
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects free speech. The
majority also rejected the Obama administration's contention that
the limits are needed to fight corruption.
The caps on campaign donations "do little, if anything, to address
that concern, while seriously restricting participation in the
democratic process," wrote Roberts, who was appointed to the court
by former President George W. Bush, a Republican.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said the ruling,
along with Citizens United four years earlier, "eviscerates our
nation's campaign finance laws."
The disagreements between the justices in some ways boil down to how
they define corruption — or the appearance of corruption — and how
that is weighed against free speech protections.
Roberts and the other conservatives — Anthony Kennedy, Clarence
Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito — have a narrow view of
corruption, saying it only occurs when a politician does something
in exchange for a donation. Unless the allegedly corruptive act
reaches that level, it is trumped by the donor's First Amendment
rights, the theory goes.
The more liberal justices — Breyer, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — have a more
expansive view of corruption. In his dissenting opinion, Breyer
wrote of the danger of corruption prompted by individuals with
outsized influence.
"Where enough money calls the tune, the general public will not be
heard," he wrote.
"NOTHING IS SAFE"
In his court opinion, Roberts pointedly wrote that lifting the
remaining limits on campaign donations was not at hand.
Campaign finance specialists and strategists who examined the ruling
said it led them to believe that more changes are coming, however.
The narrow way that Roberts defined corruption led some election law
specialists to predict that challenges to other campaign finance
restrictions are likely.
"Nothing is safe," said Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of
California, Irvine School of Law.
Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group that supports contribution
limits, said before the ruling that a decision such as Wednesday's
would allow a single donor to write a $5.9 million check to a joint
fundraising committee controlled by an elected politician or party
official, who then could distribute the money to candidates and
local or state committees.
Both parties already use joint fundraising committees to solicit
large donations from wealthy donors, but the court's ruling
increases how much they can solicit from each person.
The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign
contributions, has said that only a "very small handful of people"
are currently close to reaching the existing caps for aggregate
donations in the 2014 election cycle. According to the center's
data, only 591 donors nationwide gave the maximum allowable amounts
to federal candidates in 2012.
Wednesday's ruling eventually could threaten the legal underpinning
for other campaign finance regulations, analysts said.
The court was divided over how sweeping the ruling is.
Roberts wrote that the court did not reach the question of whether
to overturn a key 1976 ruling, called Buckley v. Valeo, which upheld
limits on campaign finance donations while also describing how
courts should analyze such regulations.
Justice Thomas, who voted with Roberts, said the court had gone
further than the chief justice claimed. The court had continued to
"chip away" at the Buckley decision, Thomas wrote in his concurring
opinion.
The aggregate limits on donations had been in place, in various
forms, since 1974.
Wednesday's case began when Republican donor Shaun McCutcheon, an
Alabama businessman, and the Republican National Committee
challenged the contribution caps. McCutcheon could give only the
maximum amount allowable to a total of nine candidates before he hit
the donation limit.
The case is McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, U.S. Supreme
Court, 12-536.
(Additional reporting by David Morgan, Gabriel Debenedetti, Andy
Sullivan and Jeff Mason; editing by David Lindsey, Howard Goller and
Dan Grebler)
In the latest in a series of decisions by the high court that have
given big-money donors more influence in U.S. elections, the
justices rejected the overall limits on how much individuals can
donate during a federal two-year election cycle.
