{"id":664,"date":"2014-04-13T22:31:29","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T03:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/?p=664"},"modified":"2014-04-14T08:49:32","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T13:49:32","slug":"mccutcheon-v-federal-election-commission-juris-blog-read-it-so-you-dont-have-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/2014\/04\/13\/mccutcheon-v-federal-election-commission-juris-blog-read-it-so-you-dont-have-to\/","title":{"rendered":"McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission: Juris Blog Read It So You Don\u2019t Have To"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"United<\/a>
United States Supreme Court Justices (John Marino\/The Washington Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by: Lauren Gailey, Associate Editor<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court handed down one of its most anticipated decisions of the October 2013 Term in the campaign finance case of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission<\/i>.\u00a0 The case involved a challenge by Alabama resident Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee to the aggregate contribution limits imposed by the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA).<\/p>\n

FECA and BCRA imposed base limits and aggregate limits on the amount of money donors could contribute to candidates for federal office.\u00a0 Base limits restricted the amount of money an individual donor could give to a particular candidate or political committee, while aggregate limits restricted the total amount a donor could give to all of the candidates and committees he or she donated to combined.\u00a0 Specifically, aggregate contributions over a two-year period were capped at $74,600 for non-candidate committees and $48,600 for donations to candidate organizations.<\/p>\n

McCutcheon, who The Daily Beast<\/i> described in October 2013 as \u201ca dedicated Republican,\u201d is the CEO of an electrical engineering firm specializing in mining.\u00a0 During the 2011-2012 election cycle, he made contributions to 16 federal candidates up to the base limits allowed by FECA and BCRA.\u00a0 Although he wanted to contribute to 12 more candidates, the laws\u2019 aggregate limits prevented him from doing so.\u00a0 As McCutcheon sarcastically put it in an editorial he wrote for Politico<\/i>, \u201cSomehow, I can give the individual limit, now $2,600, to 17 candidates without corrupting the system.\u00a0 But as soon as I give that same amount to an 18th candidate, our democracy is suddenly at risk.\u201d\u00a0 McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit challenging those limits as unconstitutional restrictions on donors\u2019 political speech, which is protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

In a fractured decision that split the Court along ideological lines, five Justices agreed.\u00a0 The four-Justice plurality held in a 40-page slip opinion that the aggregate contribution limits violated the First Amendment.\u00a0 Writing for himself and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Samuel Alito, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that aggregate limits do not further any independent governmental objective that the base limits do not already protect.\u00a0 The plurality opinion also explained that aggregate limits \u201cdo not . . . in any meaningful way\u201d serve to protect the base limits, and that there are many ways other than through aggregate contribution limits to achieve the government\u2019s stated interest in preventing corruption.<\/p>\n

The plurality concluded that caps on aggregate contributions are not in \u201cproportion to the interest served\u201d by campaign finance laws:\u00a0 protecting the electoral process from corruption.\u00a0 Due to the \u201csubstantial mismatch between the Government\u2019s stated objective [of preventing corruption] and the means selected to achieve it, the aggregate limits fail[ed]\u201d any of the tests the Court uses in its campaign finance cases.\u00a0 Aggregate contribution limits therefore represented an \u201cunnecessary abridgement\u201d of political speech rights under the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

Because it reached this result without having to choose which test to apply, the McCutcheon<\/i> plurality was able to strike down aggregate contribution limits without having to re-examine the distinction between \u201ccontributions\u201d and \u201cexpenditures\u201d that the Court drew in 1976\u2019s Buckley v. Valeo<\/i>.\u00a0 Political expenditures are spent in order to directly advocate for or against a certain candidate.\u00a0 Contributions, on the other hand, are first given to someone else:\u00a0 a candidate or group who then spends this \u201csoft money\u201d on a campaign.\u00a0 Expenditure limits are subject to strict scrutiny because, as the Court explained in Buckley<\/i>, they \u201cnecessarily reduce[] the quantity of expression.\u201d\u00a0 Contribution limits are subject a lower bar\u2014they must be \u201cclosely drawn to match a sufficiently important interest.\u201d\u00a0 For this reason, the Buckley<\/i> Court held that they are generally constitutional.\u00a0 As McCutcheon<\/i> illustrates, however, this is not always the case.<\/p>\n

Justice Clarence Thomas, who concurred in the judgment, agreed with the plurality that the aggregate contribution limits should be struck down but would have gone further.\u00a0 Justice Thomas would have overruled Buckley<\/i> and rejected the line it drew between contributions and expenditures as a distinction without a meaningful difference.\u00a0 He criticized the plurality for declining to do so even though it \u201ccontinue[d] to chip away at Buckley<\/i>\u2019s footings,\u201d leaving \u201cwhat remains of Buckley<\/i> . . . a rule without a rationale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, dissented.\u00a0 Justice Breyer criticized the plurality for defining the sort of corruption the government hopes to prevent through laws like FECA and BCRA too narrowly, as quid pro quo<\/i> corruption involving an exchange of favors.\u00a0 In reality, he explained, the \u201canticorruption interest that drives Congress to regulate campaign contributions is a far broader, more important interest than the plurality acknowledges.\u201d\u00a0 The dissent expressed fear that the absence of limits like those McCutcheon<\/i> struck down would open the door to more election corruption.<\/p>\n

Justice Breyer pondered whether McCutcheon<\/i> left any room for campaign finance restrictions intended to ensure that politicians cannot be bought and that the political speech of the rich does not drown out everybody else\u2019s.\u00a0 He warned that \u201c[t]aken together with [Citizens United<\/i>, where the Court struck down BCRA\u2019s restrictions on corporations\u2019 political expenditures], today\u2019s decision eviscerates our [n]ation\u2019s campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve.\u201d\u00a0 McCutcheon<\/i>, the dissent concluded, \u201cundermines, perhaps devastates, what remains of campaign finance reform.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lauren Gailey is a 3L at Duquesne Law and the Supreme Court beat writer for <\/i>Juris Blog.\u00a0 Over the course of her law school career, she has developed a love for appellate work and constitutional issues, and she hopes to encounter both frequently in her future practice.\u00a0 She is grateful to the editors of <\/i>Juris for allowing her the opportunity to explore these and many other fascinating subjects in the magazine and blog.<\/i><\/p>\n

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You can read the full opinion of\u00a0McCutcheon v. FEC<\/em> below:
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