In a challenge involving Vice President J.D. Vance, the high court could overturn a 2001 ruling upholding anti-corruption rules aimed at preventing wealthy donors from making large contributions to candidates.
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WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court could eliminate one of the remaining checks for money in politics in a case that worries advocates battling the influence of deep-pocketed donors.
In a challenge involving Vice President J.D. Vance, the court is scheduled on Dec. 9 to hear a Republican argument to overturn a 2001 ruling that upheld rules aimed at circumventing limits on how much wealthy donors can give to candidates by channeling their money through political parties.
Since that 5-4 decision, the court has become more conservative. And through Congress and other Supreme Court decisions, campaign finance laws have been changed, striking down various rules as unreasonable restrictions on “political speech” under the First Amendment.
Republicans argue that the changing landscape means courts should remove limits on how much political parties can spend in conjunction with candidates for federal office.
“The 5-4 deviation was deeply wrong when it was decided, and the ensuing 24 years of legal and field developments have only further eroded its foundations,” Republican lawyers wrote in court.
Exit to “inherently politicized events”
Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), who authored other campaign finance rules that were partially overturned by the Supreme Court, wrote in a legal brief that eliminating the adjusted spending limits would be “the next step in a march to allow unlimited funds to disrupt America’s elections and drown out the will of voters.”
However, the court can also avoid this problem by dismissing the case after trial.
After President Donald Trump took office, the Justice Department stopped defending federal regulations.
Later, court-appointed lawyers to argue in support of the rule said there was no need for the justices to consider the adjustment limit now because there was no threat that the federal government would enforce it.
“While the outcome will not completely satisfy everyone, it provides a middle ground that respects constitutional values and embodies judicial restraint,” attorney Roman Martinez wrote, explaining how the justices could avoid “this inherently politicized case.”
If the court doesn’t agree, the justices could take further steps to deregulate the campaign finance sector, said Rick Hasen, a UCLA law school professor and election law expert.
“Alternatively, the court could use this case to question campaign contribution limits more broadly,” he said.
Regulations passed after Watergate
The coordinated spending limits in question were included in campaign finance regulations passed by Congress in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
In a landmark 1976 decision on campaign finance law as a whole, the Supreme Court held that restricting certain types of campaign spending unreasonably restricts speech. But the court said Congress may restrict campaign contributions if the purpose is to prevent corruption or the appearance of corruption.
If a political party pays for advertising at the request of a candidate, the court later said in a 2001 decision under review that the expenditure can be regulated because it has the same effect as a direct donation to a candidate.
The court also ruled that because donors can give more to political parties than they give to candidates, donors may use political parties to circumvent the floor, increasing the likelihood that donors will expect something in return for their support.
High court imposes campaign finance regulations
But since that decision, the court has taken a tougher approach to campaign finance regulations in a series of cases, including a 2022 ruling that limits on donations must be supported by “actual evidence” to prevent corruption.
Republicans argue that the evidence in the case is “mere speculation” at best.
Anyone seeking favors in exchange for donations will still have limits on how much they can donate to the party. And Republicans argue that big donors seeking to influence elections are likely to turn to political action committees, the type of political action committees that have been recognized by courts since 2010 and have no contribution limits.
The scale of political donations has “suddenly increased”
Their challenge was launched by Vice President Vance, who is running for the Senate in 2022, and former Congressman Steve Chabot, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
based in cincinnati 6th The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the challenge, saying it was bound by a 2001 high court decision.
Marc Elias, a Democratic lawyer who supports the restrictions, said nothing has changed in the campaign finance system since 2001, except that donors now write larger checks. He pointed to community fundraising arrangements that allow candidates to join forces with political parties and political action committees to raise money.
“We’ve seen check sizes skyrocket into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and approach $1 million per person,” he says.
Republican “bait and switch”?
Martinez, a lawyer appointed by the court to defend the limits, said the increase was largely due to a 2014 Supreme Court ruling that lifted limits on the amount a person can spend on political contributions. At the time, he said, Republicans argued they could curb the situation through coordinated spending limits, which they now seek to eliminate.
He said in court that the latest Republican challenge would not only complete the party’s “bait and switch” but would also call into question many other campaign finance rules.
“The court should not be in the business of dismantling 50 years of campaign finance law one petition, clause, or precedent at a time,” he said in written arguments. “But the petitioners are taking us right there.”
Republicans responded by saying they “make no secret” that they believe all campaign finance rules need to be scrutinized, but that the court doesn’t need to go that far in this case.
Republicans said in a brief that a ruling striking down just the coordinated spending limit would be sufficient, given the lack of evidence of the actual problems the coordinated spending limit is intended to prevent.
