The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision today obliterating the Federal Election Campaign Act’s 40 year-old restriction on total contributions to Federal candidates by individuals is a stroke for free speech and a long time coming. After the FEC was created in the wake of Watergate, the restrictive new Federal campaign statute was tested in the landmark case of Buckley vs. Valeo, and the Court made significant changes to the law, ruling restrictions on so called “independent expenditures” to be unconstitutional stifling of free speech and not sufficiently related to the statute’s intention to root out “quid pro quo” corruption of the election campaign process.
Campaigns adapted under the new rules and legal precedents, which affected many state campaign finance systems as well. But the FEC law continued to contain unaddressed issues. After enactment of the sweeping “McCain-Feingold” campaign finance reform amendments to the FEC Act about ten years ago, the Supreme Court had reason to become re-engaged in looking not only at those gruesome amendments (from a free speech standpoint) but to re-think its approach to the whole ball-of-wax, going back to the Buckley decision. The result has been a series of solid (though 5-4 votes) decisions that have ripped apart most of McCain-Feingold’s onerous campaign restrictions, and that have restored the ability of an individual to support or oppose a candidate for Federal office as they see fit. So, if we can thank McCain-Feingold for anything, it is indeed for spawning “campaign finance reform”, but of a completely different nature than those two intended.
The decision is more important constitutionally than it is in practice. It means that a $123,200 cap on contributions an individual can give to all federal candidates and PACs in a two-year election cycle is now blown. Presumably, Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, will be one of the most immediate beneficiaries, as now he can give the legal limits ($2,600 per election) to every Member of Congress running for re-election if he wants. But it also means that in states like California, whose liberals always tinker with campaign finance reforms that have no bearing on rooting out their own corruption in office, will be unable to add or maintain overall campaign contribution limits in future in state races, because of the new Federal precedent.