WASHINGTON
— The Supreme Court on Wednesday continued its abolition of limits on
election spending, striking down a decades-old cap on the total amount
any individual can contribute to candidates in a two-year election
cycle. The ruling, issued near the start of a campaign season, will
change and very likely increase the already large role money plays in
American politics.
The 5-to-4 decision, with the court’s more conservative members in the majority, echoed Citizens United,
the 2010 decision that struck down limits on independent campaign
spending by corporations and unions. Wednesday’s decision seemed to
alter campaign finance law in subtle but important ways, notably by
limiting the kinds of reasons the government can offer to justify laws
said to restrict First Amendment rights in the context of campaign
contributions.
The
court’s 88-page decision reflected sharply different visions of the
meaning of the First Amendment and the role of government in regulating
elections, with the majority deeply skeptical of government efforts to
control participation in politics, and the minority saying that such
oversight was needed to ensure a functioning democracy.
Chief
Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for four justices in the
controlling opinion, said the overall limits could not survive First
Amendment scrutiny. “There is no right in our democracy more basic,” he
wrote, “than the right to participate in electing our political
leaders.”
In
a dissent from the bench, Justice Stephen G. Breyer called the majority
opinion a disturbing development that raised the overall contribution
ceiling to “the number infinity.”
“If the court in Citizens United opened a door,” he said, “today’s decision may well open a floodgate.”
Such
oral dissents are rare, and they signal deep disagreements. But both
Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Breyer also noted from the bench that
the other side’s arguments were well presented.
Wednesday’s
decision did not affect familiar base limits on contributions from
individuals to candidates, currently $2,600 per candidate in primary and
general elections. But it said that overall limits of $48,600 by
individuals every two years for contributions to all federal candidates
violated the First Amendment, as did separate aggregate limits on
contributions to political party committees, currently $74,600.
In
his written opinion, Justice Breyer said Wednesday’s decision would
allow “a single individual to contribute millions of dollars to a
political party or to a candidate’s campaign.” He was joined by Justices
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The case, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, No. 12-536,
was brought by Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman, and the
Republican National Committee. Mr. McCutcheon, who had contributed a
total of some $33,000 to 16 candidates for federal office in the 2012
election cycle, said he had wanted to give $1,776 each to 12 more but
was stopped by the overall cap. The party committee said it wanted to
receive contributions above the legal limit.
In
an interview last fall, Mr. McCutcheon said his goal was to encourage
the adoption of conservative principles. “To me,” he said, “being a
conservative means smaller government and more freedom.”
Chief
Justice Roberts said the core purpose of the First Amendment was to
protect political speech from government interference, even if many
people might welcome it.
“They
would be delighted to see fewer television commercials touting a
candidate’s accomplishments or disparaging an opponent’s character,” the
chief justice wrote. “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 decision chipped away at the central distinction drawn by the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo,
its seminal 1976 campaign finance decision. Independent spending, the
court said in Buckley, is political speech protected by the First
Amendment. But contributions may be capped, the court said then, in the
name of preventing corruption. The court added in passing that aggregate
contribution limits were a “quite modest restraint upon protected
political activity” that “serves to prevent evasion” of the base limits.
Chief
Justice Roberts said that brief passage on overall limits had to be
reconsidered in light of later regulatory developments and other
factors. But he added that the Buckley decision’s general structure
remained intact. “We see no need,” he said, “to revisit Buckley’s
distinction between contributions and expenditures.”
The
chief justice said that while the $2,600 base limits were also intact,
the overall caps placed an unacceptable burden on “an individual’s right
to participate in the public debate through political expression and
political association.”
“The
government may no more restrict how many candidates or causes a donor
may support than it may tell a newspaper how many candidates it may
endorse,” he wrote.
Leveling
the playing field for the government, Chief Justice Roberts said, is
not an acceptable interest. Nor is “the possibility that an individual
who spends large sums may garner ‘influence over or access to’ elected
officials or political parties,” he added, quoting Citizens United.
The only acceptable justification, he said, was rooting out “quid pro quo corruption” or the appearance of it.
Justice
Breyer said that analysis was much too narrow. “The anticorruption
interest that drives Congress to regulate campaign contributions is a
far broader, more important interest than the plurality acknowledges,”
he wrote. “It is an interest in maintaining the integrity of our public
governmental institutions.”
“Where enough money calls the tune,” he wrote, “the general public will not be heard.”
Graphic: Before and After the Supreme Court’s Ruling
Wednesday’s decision concerned only contributions from individuals. Federal law
continues to ban direct contributions by corporations and unions,
though they remain free to spend unlimited sums through “super PACs” and
similar vehicles.
The
Roberts court has been consistently hostile to campaign finance limits.
In a half-dozen earlier cases, the five more conservative justices have
all voted together, though Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel A.
Alito Jr. have sometimes taken a more incremental approach than the
bolder one called for by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and
Clarence Thomas.
Wednesday’s decision is likely to increase overall campaign spending, but it may also rechannel some of it away from super PACs and toward candidates and parties.
“The
existing aggregate limits may in fact encourage the movement of money
away from entities subject to disclosure,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote.
“Because individuals’ direct contributions are limited, would-be donors
may turn to other avenues for political speech.”
He was joined by Justices Alito, Kennedy and Scalia. Justice Thomas wrote a concurring opinion.
The
main opinions spent many pages arguing over the possibility that the
basic limits could be circumvented without the overall caps. Justice
Breyer gave detailed examples, which Chief Justice Roberts dismissed as
speculative and “highly implausible.” The chief justice added that
Congress could address some perceived loopholes through earmark
requirements, transfer restrictions, segregated accounts and mandated
disclosure, though he did not say that those efforts would pass
constitutional muster.
Justice
Breyer said there was little hope that regulators would vigorously
enforce even the existing limits. Quoting Oscar Wilde, he said the very
idea was laughable.
More
broadly, he said the decision was one “that substitutes judges’
understandings of how the political process works for the understanding
of Congress; that fails to recognize the difference between influence
resting upon public opinion and influence bought by money alone; that
overturns key precedent; that creates huge loopholes in the law; and
that undermines, perhaps devastates, what remains of campaign finance
reform.”
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