Politics

Supreme Court Quietly Hands Victory To Campaign Finance Advocates

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Kevin Daley Supreme Court correspondent
Font Size:

The Supreme Court quietly handed a victory to advocates of campaign finance reform Monday, affirming a lower court ruling that upheld a federal ban on so-called “soft money” contributions.

Many observers anticipated the justices would take the case, as the Roberts Court tends to look suspiciously at campaign finance laws. The Court struck down limits on political spending by corporations and labor unions in 2010 and abolished aggregate limits on individual donations in 2014.

Federal law prohibits donors from contributing unlimited sums of money to party committees. Though limits on these contributions exist, they are significantly higher than the limits on donations to individual candidates. Because these donations are not earmarked for a particular candidate, they are not subject to the more stringent rules governing such contributions.

In addition, party committees have historically used these donations for so-called “independent activities” like issue ads or registration drives. This confluence of factors has earned these donations the colloquialism “soft money.”

The Republican Party of Louisiana (LAGOP) challenged the federal limits on soft money donations to state and local committees. The organization argued that Congress cannot limit donations to party committees for independent activities. As the Campaign Legal Center explains, LAGOP argues Congress’ legitimate interest in regulating soft money to mitigate against corruption can’t apply to state and local committees. In their view, donations to these committees have no corrupting effect because they are not spent in connection with a candidate.

Justice Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch supported hearing the case, an early sign that Gorsuch follows conservative orthodoxy in the campaign finance area.

The decision marks the second time in recent years that the justices have directly engaged soft-money bans. The Court declined to take a challenge to the ban in 2010 over the objections of Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. As such, the prospects of judicial abolition of the ban are now lower than ever.

“I’m disappointed in the decision, but it’s not that big of a surprise,” said Hans A. von Spakovsky, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative. “It’s now pretty clear that the Court is just not going to get into this part of McCain-Feingold, and if the parties want these provisions to change, they’re going to have to go to Congress.”

Follow Kevin on Twitter

Send tips to kevin@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel