The case is McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.
Here's detail:
At issue in the case are aggregate contribution limits – the maximum amount that a donor can give to federal candidates and political party committees throughout the course of a two-year election cycle.
Dubbed “Citizens United II” by watchdogs, they worry without the limits, donors’ influence will only grow.
“If the court strikes down these limits they will leave the nation unable to protect itself from the wholesale corruption of our officeholders and of government decisions,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, which lobbies for stronger campaign finance laws.
Now set at just over $123,200, the limits were enacted by Congress in the early 1970s and upheld by the court’s 1976 decision in a case dubbed Buckley v. Valeo.
“Congress was surely entitled to conclude… that contribution ceilings were a necessary legislative concomitant to deal with the reality or appearance of corruption inherent in a system permitting unlimited financial contributions,” the court found.
The Supreme Court has taken up numerous campaign finance cases since then, but has declined until now to revisit the Buckley finding.
The justices will consider the case of Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman and GOP backer who is challenging the limits as unconstitutional. His central argument is simple: limiting donations hampers contributors’ free speech and their participation in the political system.
“Contributing to candidates is protected by the First Amendment,” said the Bopp Law Firm’s James Bopp, lead counsel for the Republican National Committee, which has partnered with McCutcheon on the case to oppose the aggregate limit.
“When you have a law that prevents you from contributing to candidates that you want to, which this law does, it is prohibiting speech, which is what a contribution is,” he said.
