Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon and his GOP allies insist their Supreme Court challenge to a cap on overall campaign contributions in one election cycle doesn’t dispute the constitutionality of the “base” limit on how much an individual can give to a single candidate in a single election. “This case is not about base limits; they make sense,” said McCutcheon, whose challenge in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission is scheduled for oral argument before the Supreme Court on Oct. 8. “The corruption argument on base limits is pretty solid. If you were running for Congress and I gave you $1 million, wouldn’t you owe me?” The Republican National Committee has joined McCutcheon in arguing that the aggregate limits muzzle free speech. Indiana lawyer James Bopp Jr., who is representing the RNC in the case, also stresses: “We’re not challenging base limits in this case.” The case is shaping up as a key test of how far this high court is willing to deregulate the campaign finance system.
But it’s easy to see why McCutcheon’s opponents warn that his challenge poses a direct danger to contribution limits of all kinds. The aggregate limits now bar an individual from giving more than $48,600 to candidates in one election cycle, and more than $74,600 to political action committees and parties. The cap on base contributions to a single candidate is much lower, at $2,600 for individuals, and is seen as one of the last remaining pillars of the campaign finance regime.
The McCutcheon case threatens the underlying limits on two fronts, advocates of campaign finance restrictions say. First, knocking down the aggregate limits would give big donors an easy way to get around the underlying cap on direct candidate donations. Candidate-party joint fundraising committees already collect checks into the tens of thousands of dollars from big donors. Without the aggregate limits, those checks might soar into the millions.
The McCutcheon challenge also may prompt the high court to regard contribution limits with a more critical eye and to hold them to a more rigorous standard of constitutional scrutiny. In its landmark Buckley v. Valeo ruling in 1976, the high court held that limits on campaign spending were constitutionally suspect, while caps on direct contributions to candidates were justifiable to prevent corruption and its appearance.
This distinction between expenditures and contributions helps explain why, in 2010, the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC knocked down long-standing limits on independent campaign spending by non-party outside groups.
In McCutcheon v. FEC, both the RNC and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has been given special permission to join the Oct. 8 oral argument, argue that the Supreme Court should throw out that Buckley distinction between expenditures and contributions.
Full Article: The End of Contribution Limits? | Rules of the Game | Beltway Insiders.