Supreme Court strikes down limits on overall federal campaign donations

[garbon]

Corrupting officials with bribes is protected by the Constitution damnit.  Can I give free speech to cops if they pull me over to?

Asked like a white person.

How would the other half of you ask?

We'd know better.

[Valmy]

We'd know better.

Eh you get out in the RIo Grande Valley or Louisiana or something I bet you could make it work.

[Ideologue]

Nice try.

Look, sometimes someone just needs to embezzle US$23.4 million.

I think First Amendment principles certainly require such a ruling.  The ultimate solution is a Constitutional amendment.  That establishes a one-party state.

[The Minsky Moment]

While I question the legal basis for the decision, in the context of the bizarre framework of the US campaign finance laws, this is probably a net positive, because it will tend to move money from nebulous and unaccountable "independent" expenditures to established structures like parties and PACs.

[The Minsky Moment]

a broadcaster is anybody the FCC says so, y'know when they get permission to use public airwaves

So cable-only is exempt?

unbiased is a bit more difficult, but the us has been organizing unbiased broadcast political debates for decades and the networks have been doing it on an issue by issue basis since they started covering politics, plus the bbc and (I presume) canadian public broadcasters have been doing it for decades too.

even fox news managed to put together a reasonably unbiased presidential debate last time round

So seems like this is a solution in search of a problem.

[garbon]

We'd know better.

Eh you get out in the RIo Grande Valley or Louisiana or something I bet you could make it work.

[Razgovory]

2. A broadcasters public service obligation for unbiased coverage of the election for tv and radio

What's a broadcaster, and what's unbiased?

A catapult that throws women. It's unbiased when it throws them in straight line.

[grumbler]

While I question the legal basis for the decision, in the context of the bizarre framework of the US campaign finance laws, this is probably a net positive, because it will tend to move money from nebulous and unaccountable "independent" expenditures to established structures like parties and PACs.

Agreed.  This certainly makes more sense than giving human rights to legal fictions.

[Syt]

Commentary from the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/04/the-john-roberts-project-beyond-mccutcheon.html

you think that the Supreme Court's decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission was bad, just wait: worse may be on the way.

The issue before the Court was fairly narrow, even a little obscure. Congress bars individuals from contributing more than fifty-two hundred dollars to any candidate for federal office in any election cycle. It also bars individuals from contributing more than a hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars, in total, to multiple federal candidates in a cycle. In the McCutcheon case, by a vote of five to four, the Court struck down the overall hundred-and-twenty-three-thousand-dollar limit. But this ruling will affect relatively few campaign contributors. In the most recent cycle, fewer than six hundred donors maxed out to candidates.

So why is the case important? Because the language of Chief Justice John Roberts's opinion suggests that the Court remains committed to the project announced most prominently in the Citizens United case, four years ago: the deregulation of American political campaigns.

The court, and Roberts in particular, has been very clear that regulation of campaign contributions is allowed under a single rationale. As he wrote in McCutcheon, "It is not an acceptable governmental objective to 'level the playing field,' or to 'level electoral opportunities,' or to 'equalize the financial resources of candidates.'" Rather, Roberts wrote, "Congress may target only a specific type of corruption—'quid pro quo' corruption."

But what is "quid pro quo" corruption, and what can Congress do about it? Roberts is clearer about what "quid pro quo" corruption is not than about what it is. In the key passage in the opinion, he writes:

Spending large sums of money in connection with elections, but not in connection with an effort to control the exercise of an officeholder's official duties, does not give rise to such quid pro quo corruption. Nor does the possibility that an individual who spends large sums may garner "influence over or access to" elected officials or political parties. And because the Government's interest in preventing the appearance of corruption is equally confined to the appearance of quid pro quo corruption, the Government may not seek to limit the appearance of mere influence or access.
In other words, Roberts is defining "quid pro quo" corruption almost as outright bribery, which Congress can outlaw. But the implication of what Roberts is saying is that anything short of outright bribery is protected by the First Amendment.

This means that the Court may be preparing to do away with the fifty-two-hundred-dollar limit, as well. Unlike the restriction on overall giving, the individual limit is enormously consequential. All campaigns, from House of Representatives races to Presidential contests, seek to have their contributors "max out" by donating the full amount authorized by law. To be sure, Roberts says at several points in the opinion that the issue of the fifty-two-hundred-dollar limit is not before the Court. As he notes, "This case does not involve any challenge to the base limits, which we have previously upheld as serving the permissible objective of combatting corruption." But, the Court had previously upheld overall limits as well, in the famous 1976 decision Buckley v. Valeo. Roberts brushes that precedent aside as merely "one paragraph of its 139-page opinion."

Roberts is dismissive of the objections to deregulating campaigns and full of sympathy for the plight of those denied the ability to contribute as much money as they would prefer. He writes that under the current law, "A donor must limit the number of candidates he supports, and may have to choose which of several policy concerns he will advance—clear First Amendment harms." He adds that "the whole point of the First Amendment is to afford individuals protection against such infringements." In an almost Orwellian recasting, he calls giving money "participating in an electoral debate."

Every Chief Justice takes on a project. Earl Warren wanted to desegregate the South. Warren Burger wanted to limit the rights of criminal suspects. William Rehnquist wanted to revive the powers of the states. It increasingly appears likely that, for John Roberts, the project will be removing the limits that burden wealthy campaign contributors—the "whole point" of the First Amendment, as he sees it. So far, that project is doing pretty well.

[OttoVonBismarck]

While I question the legal basis for the decision, in the context of the bizarre framework of the US campaign finance laws, this is probably a net positive, because it will tend to move money from nebulous and unaccountable "independent" expenditures to established structures like parties and PACs.

Agreed.  This certainly makes more sense than giving human rights to legal fictions.

No.

[CountDeMoney]

Plutocracy: it's not just for the citizens of Pluto anymore.

[The Minsky Moment]

One thing that is clear from McCutcheon is that the 5 justices have become completely unmoored from existing precedent and doctrine.

Ever since nearly 40 years ago Buckley introduced the notion that transferring cash might implicate the First Amendment in some way, 2 key doctrinal pillars have been:
1) the distinction between restrictions on communications spending which are frowned upon, and restrictions on contibutions, which tend to be upheld if reasonable.
2) the notion that regulation can be justified to respond to the apperance of corruption

Pillar 1 has been effectively demolished by McCutcheon, which actually overrules Buckley on the issue presented, although Thomas is the only one who comes right out and says it.
Pillar 2 was fatally weakned in Citizens United and finally killed off here.  The majority plays lip service to the idea of appearance of corruption but applies it so narrowly as to erase it as a justification separate from actual quid pro quo corruption.

It's useful to keep in mind that the Supreme Court has never ruled that the mere transmission of money is in itself protected speech, although there is language in the opening of this opinion that seems to veer in that direction.  The concept of First Amendment protection for contributions as articulated in Buckley was entirely pragmatic - "because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money . . . The electorate's increasing dependence on television, radio, and other mass media for news and information has made these expensive modes of communication indispensable instruments of effective political speech."  Perfectly sensible.  But it is hard to contend that the RNC - one of the plaintiffs in this case - or its supported candidates have had grave difficulties getting its messages across in these various media under the present laws.  On the contrary, Justice Robers alludes to popular discontent with already existing TV saturation of political advertisements. 

As I said the practical effect of this decision may not be of special concern, it may actually improve upon the status quo ante.  But the constitutional rationale that the Court is pursuing in these cases is becoming harder and harder to follow.

[The Brain]

2 Unlimited.