Both sides wrapped themselves in the First Amendment today as the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court struck down aggregate campaign-contribution limits in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, and dissenters bemoaned the elimination of one more restriction on campaign spending.  In a decision that is sure to be as fiercely attacked — and as little understood — as 2010′s Citizens United v. FEC, the high court upheld contribution limits of $2,600 to individual candidates ($5,200 over a two-year election cycle) and $5,000 to party committees, but freed donors to apply that money to as many candidates as they want. McCutcheon also allows donors to contribute to more party committees and may help challengers raise money to try and dislodge incumbents.  The essential divide between the majority and the dissenters was over individual rights. Chief Justice John Roberts viewed the federal law that effectively prevented donors from giving the maximum to more than 10 candidates as an unconstitutional restriction on their right to get involved in politics. His decision focused on the individual’s First Amendment right of free expression as opposed to the public’s right to enact laws designed to limit influence in politics.  Roberts and Kagan: On opposite sides with campaign finance. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)  “Congress may not regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics, or to restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others,” Roberts wrote, in a decision joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. (Thomas, in a concurrence, would have gone further and subjected all contribution limits to the same strict scrutiny as other forms of expression.)  The dissent, led by Justice Stephen Breyer, said Roberts was undermining the First Amendment by allowing rich individuals pour even more money into political campaigns, drowning out the voices of the less affluent majority. By his calculations, one person could give $3.6 million to House and Senate candidates and party committees without running afoul of the law, compared with a previous aggregate limit of $123,200.  “Today’s decision eviscerates our Nation’s campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve,” said Breyer, who was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. “Where enough money calls the tune, the general public will not be heard.”  Public Citizen decried the decision as a “devastating blow to our democracy,” cementing “plutocrat rights” for heavy-hitting contributors like Charles and David Koch.  “No matter what five Supreme Court justices say, the First Amendment was never intended to provide a giant megaphone for the wealthiest to use to shout down the rest of us,” the group said.  The decision doesn’t upset the fundamental regulatory scheme Congress has set up to limit how much money an individual can give to each candidate or political party. It only lifted the restriction on aggregate contributions, which the court held arbitrarily restricts participation in politics. The court’s 2006 decision upholding a ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates is also untouched.  “To require one person to contribute at lower levels than others because he wants to support more candidates or causes is to impose a special burden on broader participation in the democratic process,” Roberts wrote. He downplayed the dissent’s concerns that an individual could now give as much as $3.6 million in a two-year election cycle and that money could be funneled to individual candidates, saying a web of federal laws prevents such movements of cash.  One major effect of the ruling will be to lift the amount of money party committees can raise. Under the old limits, those committees “were in competition with each other” because individuals could only make the maximum contribution of $32,400 to two committees, said Bobby Burchfield, a partner with McDermott Will and Emery who argued before the court for challenger Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky. He said it could also help challengers to long-entrenched incumbents because donors will be less inclined to concentrate their bets.  The decision also clarifies that campaign contribution limits have the sole purpose of cutting down on quid pro quo corruption where officeholders trade their votes for cash, Burchfield said, not for “balancing the playing field” or reducing money in politics generally.  “The important thing here is the court continues to clarify some of the key principles the court may have deviated from in recent years,” he said. “It’s been the law since the 1980s that the only reason for campaign-finance limits is to prevent corruption, and this strongly reaffirms the idea that corruption means quid pro quo.”  Roberts rejected the idea that campaign-finance laws can be justified as a means of reducing the influence of rich individuals in politics. Influence is a “central feature of democracy” because constituents support candidates who “share their beliefs and interests,” he said, citing political theorist Edmund Burke.  Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so too does much of what the First Amendment vigorously protects. 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 opposition.  The dissenters said “the First Amendment advances not only the individual’s right to engage in political speech, but also the public’s interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters.”  Roberts dismissed such talk as threatening to individual rights, however.  “The dissent’s `collective speech’ reflected in laws is of course the will of the majority, and plainly can include laws that restrict free speech,” he wrote. “The whole point of the First Amendment is to afford individuals protection against such infringements.”
The Supreme Court eliminates aggregate limits on campaign contributions on First Amendment grounds, sparking a fierce dissent from liberal justices.