MCCUTCHEON V. FEC. SCOTUS (PDF).
AGGREGATE LIMITS STRUCK. WP. “On its face, the ruling seems far more limited than Citizens United, which has dramatically increased spending on elections and spawned a new wave of political organizations funded by wealthy individuals.”
WHO WINS? WP. “It’s the biggest campaign financing ruling from the court since the Citizens United ruling and, as such, produces a handful of winners and, yes, some losers. Here they are.”
COVINGTON ADVISORY ON MCCUTCHEON. Here.
RAMIFICATIONS. Pillsbury. “The ruling in this case may result in the invalidation of aggregate contribution limits of local jurisdictions, such as the Cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco.”
BYE, BYE, BIENNIAL LIMITS. WSJ. “In an interview Wednesday, Mr. McCutcheon hailed the decision, saying more money ‘creates more competition and puts more ideas out there. I don’t see how it could hurt anything. We’re talking about free speech in a free country.'”
FEC VIA TWITTER: “[C]onsidering the impact on its regs.”
SUPREMES OPEN THE DOOR. Womble Carlyle.
THE FIRST POST-MCCUTCHEON FUNDRAISER. Chicago Sun Times. “After dinner with Emanuel and Axelrod, Obama heads to a $10,000-a-ticket DNC dinner fundraiser for 55 people at the Lincoln Park home of major Obama donors Craig Freedman and Grace Tsao-Wu.”
MCCUTCHEON BASICS. Perkins Coie.
MCCUTCHEON SPEAKS: CAN YOU HEAR HIM NOW? WP. “The aggregate limits did not make any sense. It’s about freedom and your freedom of speech and your right to spend your money on as many candidates, parties and PACs as you choose. In a free country, we should be free to spend our money – especially on media and speech and disseminating ideas.”
DONORS BOLSTERED. NYT. “‘Today’s court decision in McCutcheon v. F.E.C. is an important first step toward restoring the voice of candidates and party committees and a vindication for all those who support robust, transparent political discourse,’ said Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, which joined the lawsuit with Mr. McCutcheon.”
SPIKING THE FOOTBALL. The Hill. “Wednesday’s decision should give the parties more power.”
FIRST AMENDMENT WINS. NRO. “The Left hated the Citizens United decision, which was at its heart a case about whether an organization should be allowed to show a film critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the run-up to an election. It takes a particularly warped view of the relationship between citizen and state to conclude that justice and fairness require the censorship of those who would criticize men and women of great power.”
REPORTING FROM UK. Daily Mail. “The Supreme Court has struck down campaign donation limits that individual donors can make to candidates, political parties and political action committees in a landmark ruling handed down today”
MORE, MORE, MORE. Volokh Conspiracy. “It seems important to note that the path of the Supreme Court’s campaign finance cases is in part caused by procedure — in particular, the statutes that provide for many campaign finance cases to be directly appealed to the Supreme Court.”
CCP HAILS. Here. “Today is a good day for democracy. The Court has put some teeth into the requirement that campaign contribution limits must have a legitimate anti-corruption purpose. This will make it easier for candidates and parties to raise funds and that is also a good thing.”
HYSTERICS ON HOLD. Forbes. “The response from the left and good-government types to the U.S. Supreme Court’s McCutcheon v. FEC decision was immediate, hyperbolic and predictable.”
POLITICO COLLECTS VIEWS. Here.
WANT CHEESE WITH THAT? Statement of Democratic FEC Commissioners.
TIMING IS EVERYTHING. Ravel in NYT.
SUPREMELY DISAPPOINTED. WP. “The ruling shows two things: The Roberts Court’s destructive view on these matters wasn’t changed by the backlash to its Citizens United holding, and Congress must respond by designing new rules that can pass the court’s overly skeptical review.”
THE DANGER OF THE DISSENT. Volokh Conspiracy. “But how can liberals, who so expansively interpret other constitutional provisions, narrow the First Amendment so that campaign finance no longer gets protection?”
COLLECTIVE SPEECH REFERENCES. Althouse. “Number of times Justice Breyer uses the expression ‘collective speech’ in his dissenting opinion in McCutcheon: 1.
Number of times Chief Justice Roberts uses Breyer’s phase ‘collective speech’ —in quote marks — in his plurality opinion in McCutcheon: 4.”
SKY’S THE LIMIT. TIME. “In a landmark ruling on April 2, a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court decided that limits on aggregate donations violated the constitutional right to free speech.”
FIRST AMENDMENT RESTORED. Brad Smith. “As the Court noted, some may find the existence of money in politics ‘repugnant,’ but ‘[i]f the First Amendment protects flag burning, funeral protests, and Nazi parades…it surely protects political campaign speech.’ And if a government wants to regulate such speech — it better have a very good reason.”
HASEN: A HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD OPINION. Slate. “Third and most dramatically, the court seems to open the door for a future challenge to what remains of the McCain-Feingold law: the ban on large, ‘soft money’ contributions collected by political parties.”
MA: STATE AGGREGATE LIMIT NO LONGER ENFORCED. MA Office of Campaign & Political Finance. “OCPF will no longer enforce the $12,500 aggregate limit on the amount that an individual may contribute to all candidates.”
NY: WHAT MCCUTCHEON MEANS FOR NY. NYstateofpolitics.com. “Good-government advocates fear this morning Supreme Court ruling could have wide-reaching effects for New York’s own aggregate limits on campaign contributions in a given election cycle.”
SELF FUNDER REACTS. WFB. “The Supreme Court’s ruling did not, however, place any new restrictions on how much money a candidate can donate to his or her own campaign. That’s great news for Eldridge, who also happens to be the single largest contributor to the Eldridge campaign, having donated at least $715,000 of ‘his’ fortune thus far, according to the campaign’s most recent financial disclosures.”
NON-MCCUTCHEON LINKS:
THURS. FEC MEETING. The agenda is here.
CA: PAYING LEGAL EXPENSES WITH CAMPAIGN FUNDS. HuffPo. “More than half a million dollars that donors intended to support suspended state Sen. Leland Yee’s (D) now defunct campaign for California Secretary of State may now be available for the scandal-ensnared politician to fund his legal defense.”
DC: COMPLAINT AGAINST MACHEN. City Paper. “In a letter to the D.C Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility today, attorney and Gray supporter Brian Lederer calls for the bar to consider sanctions against Machen.”
DC: WAS MACHEN FAIR? WP. “Like all crime-fighting superheroes, however, our Machen appears to have a potentially fatal flaw. Inside the prosecutor dwells a preacher whose penchant for proselytizing sometimes casts doubt on the lawman’s impartiality.”
GA: ETHICS COMMISSION CONTROVERSY. AJC. “State ethics commission director Holly LaBerge testified Wednesday that it wasn’t necessary to subpoena records in an investigation into Gov. Nathan Deal’s campaign because his attorney would give them voluntarily.”
MD: SAVE THE DATE COMPLAINT. WP. “Brown cried foul after a Gansler fundraising consultant sent an e-mail Tuesday asking recipients to put dates on their calendars this month for a reception in Silver Spring and a breakfast in Frederick.”