McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission
- Date:
- April 2, 2014
- Location:
- United States
McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on April 2, 2014, struck down (5–4) provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA; 1971)—as amended by the FECA Amendments (1974; 1976) and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA; 2002)—that had imposed aggregate limits on monetary contributions by individuals to multiple federal candidates, political party committees, and noncandidate political action committees (PACs). (The limit on contributions to PACs did not apply to so-called Super PACs, which do not give money to candidates and whose spending is not coordinated with any political campaign.) The court held these limits to be a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of association and freedom of speech. The ruling left in place FECA’s limits on contributions by individuals to single candidates and political committees, the so-called “base limits,” which were not at issue in the case.
While many conservative court watchers, including some free-speech advocates, celebrated the decision as a victory for the First Amendment, most liberals, including proponents of campaign finance reform, predicted that it would increase the pernicious influence of money in American politics—as did, in their opinion, the court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Background
McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission arose in June 2012 when Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman, and the Republican National Committee (RNC), which manages the affairs of the national Republican Party, challenged FECA’s aggregate limits in U.S. district court. At that time, FECA’s aggregate limits for two-year election cycles—the period beginning on January 1 of an odd-numbered year and ending on December 31 of the following even-numbered year—were $46,200 to all candidates and $70,800 to all party committees and noncandidate PACs. FECA also specified base limits of $2,500 per election to a single candidate (or $5,000 to a single candidate for both the primary and the general elections), $30,800 per year to a national party committee, and $5,000 per year to a noncandidate PAC. Beginning in 2011, McCutcheon made contributions (all within the base limits) of more than $33,000 to several candidates and of more than $32,000 to national party committees and noncandidate PACs. During the remainder of the 2011–12 election cycle, however, he wished to contribute $1,776 to each of 12 additional candidates and $25,000 to each of three national-party committees, as well as unspecified amounts to other party committees and noncandidate PACs, which would have raised his aggregate totals to more than $49,000 for all candidates and to more than $107,000 for all party committees and noncandidate PACs, in violation of the aggregate limits. In addition, McCutcheon wished to contribute a total of $60,000 to candidates and $75,000 to three national-party committees during 2013–14, which would put him over the aggregate limits for that election cycle.
In June 2012 McCutcheon filed suit against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in federal district court, arguing that the infringements of First Amendment freedoms created by FECA’s aggregate limits were no longer justified by the government’s compelling interest in preventing “the reality and appearance of corruption,” as the Supreme Court described the purpose of FECA’s base and aggregate limits when it upheld both in Buckley v. Valeo (1976). In particular, McCutcheon urged, aggregate limits were not necessary to prevent circumvention of the base limit on contributions to single candidates—by, among other strategies, funneling large contributions through party committees and PACs—because FECA amendments and regulations implemented since 1976 had imposed, among other restrictions, base limits on contributions from individuals to party committees and PACs and limits on contributions from party committees and PACs to single candidates, making indirect transfers of large sums to candidates difficult, if not impossible.
The district court rejected this argument, holding that aggregate limits remained necessary because, without them, an individual could (at least hypothetically) evade the base limit on contributions to single candidates in ways not contemplated by the Buckley court, including by: (1) making a single large contribution to a joint fund-raising committee, which would (2) distribute the money among several party committees (in accordance with the base limits), which would in turn (3) transfer the money received to a single party committee (there being no limits on transfers of money between party committees of the same party), which would (4) use all of the transferred money to cover the expenditures of a single candidate. Although “it may seem unlikely that so many separate entities would willingly serve as conduits for a single contributor’s interests,” the court reasoned, “it is not hard to imagine a situation where the parties implicitly agree to such a system…and there is no reason to think the quid pro quo of an exchange depends on the number of steps in the transaction.” McCutcheon appealed the district court’s decision directly to the Supreme Court, and oral arguments were heard on October 8, 2013.
