# SCOTUS strikes down aggregate campaign donation limits **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 2, 2014, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168 "2014-04-02T14:32:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/81 "2014-04-03T14:45:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > For “many people,” substitute “practically everybody.” Sure. As practically everybody would be happy to see the Nazis NOT march, the Westboro Baptist Church NOT protest, and (some exceptions here, perhaps) the American flag NOT be burned. But the First Amendment protects all these. ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/82 "2014-04-03T17:25:01Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > oops: This is not compelling. You can’t define corruption solely as _quid pro quo_; as the dissent notes, it’s too narrow. The influence of money in politics is much more nuanced (e.g. See **BrainGlutton** ’s post). The reality is that this opinion was a political gift from Chief Justice John Roberts to conservatives after ruling in favor of Obamacare. The problem with this opinion is that it is partisan. It mostly affects billionaires because Republicans have already used the Legislatures to whittle down down union membership to historic lows. As for the opinion, I don’t care, the electorate is stupid as shit anyway, would vote in talking Teddy Ruxpin doll if it were programmed to promise higher taxes and limited government. - Honesty ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/83 "2014-04-03T17:48:16Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I was under the impression that Congress had pretty much always been able to regulate the flow of money outside the US as part of its foreign relations power. It never really occurred to me that there might be a constitutional problem with the material support statutes. Do you mean you have the impression that the exercise of the foreign relations power is not subject to the bill of rights? I don’t think that’s correct, though I’ve not done a great deal of work in this area–just read some things. And yes, the material support statutes are highly constitutionally suspect, in my view and the view of many (mostly dissenting!) federal judges. If I donate money to an organization that USAID also donates to, and whose stated purpose is to provide lunch money kids, and _that’s what they actually do_, it shouldn’t really matter if the local council that distributes that money has Hamas members on it. And yet, there are men serving time in prison in the U.S. for a set of facts pretty close to that. In any event, my point was simply that the exercise of political speech and association through donations occurs in lots of contexts, and many of those contexts are political targets of one group or another that either have been attacked in the past or will plausibly be attacked in the future. I’d rather not eliminate the line of argument that such activity is protected by the First Amendment. > [@RTFirefly](#): > > He’s doing a piss-poor job of it, that’s all I can say. > > At any rate, let both sides slug it out without the billionaires, yes. Really? You’d be Ok with a law forbidding George Soros from funding Human Rights Watch? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/84 "2014-04-03T17:55:17Z")
I think that what Bricker posted explains the reasoning pretty well: campaign finance law can limit money in politics to reduce corruption, but cannot be an end in itself. While I understand that line of thinking and agree that Congress should not be trying to reduce money in politics just to reduce money in politics, I think SCOTUS unnecessarily took away some of Congress’ power here. Donations to politicians are simply not speech. Basically, I agree that the law limiting aggregate donations is stupid, but I don’t think it was unconstitutional. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/85 "2014-04-03T17:57:15Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > The reality is that this opinion was a political gift from Chief Justice John Roberts to conservatives after ruling in favor of Obamacare. Why did he need to provide a gift? He can’t lose his job. And for that matter, why did he need to rule to support Obamacare in the first place, and thus create the need for some offsetting “gift?” Why wouldn’t he simply rule against Obamacare in the first place, obviating the need to provide compensatory future gift rulings? I am a conservative with legal training – although admittedly not a judge. But from the beginning, I said I opposed Obamacare as a poor choice for social policy, but admitted it was perfectly constitutional. (I never did consider the Obamacare-as-tax angle; i found it constitutional under Congress’ Commerce Clause powers, and said so on this board repeatedly). So if Bush had managed to appoint me to the Supreme Court just before he left office, (a) the country would be a far better place, but more specifically (b) I would have ruled much like Roberts did. And presumably you would have said I was gifting someone or other, yes? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/86 "2014-04-03T18:26:55Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > How did thus law…which restricted the number of candidates you supported relate to this or the right to vote as you claimed before? Actually the previous law didn’t restrict the number of candidates you could contribute to, it just said you can’t contribute the maximum to all of them. The thing that concerns me most about this decision is that the justices have set a precedent that the only form of corruption that exists was actual quid pro quo, and that an appearance of impropriety isn’t relevant. As Measure for Measure stated psoted above, it is rediculously easy to effectively buy votes in congress without explicitly stating a quid pro quo relationship. Can anyone honestly say that if big donor put $2,500 into the campaign funds of every Republican in congress and the senate candidates campaign fund based on the great things they were doing for the American people, and then happened to mention to Boehner, that the one thing the American people really need is a 3% increase in the tariff on imported cotton, that his contributions would have no effect whatsoever on which amendments to the foreign import bill reached the house floor? The argument over “contributions = free speech” really comes down to whether bribery counts as free speech. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/87 "2014-04-03T18:33:59Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Donations to politicians are simply not speech. Yes they are - Money is speech. If you assume the opposite, then the ruling makes no sense of course. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/88 "2014-04-03T18:36:04Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Really? You’d be Ok with a law forbidding George Soros from funding Human Rights Watch? I’d be OK with one forbidding HRW (and everybody else) from making campaign donations. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/89 "2014-04-03T18:37:39Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Do you mean you have the impression that the exercise of the foreign relations power is not subject to the bill of rights? I don’t think that’s correct, though I’ve not done a great deal of work in this area–just read some things. I have the impression that the exercise is subject to rational basis review rather than strict scrutiny, because the Constitution explicitly provides that the power is within the purview of the “coordinate branches.” ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/90 "2014-04-03T18:45:16Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I have the impression that the exercise is subject to rational basis review rather than strict scrutiny, because the Constitution explicitly provides that the power is within the purview of the “coordinate branches.” I’m not sure that’s quite right. But I don’t know enough to say for sure. I do know that several courts of appeals have applied typical First Amendment tests to the material support statutes. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/91 "2014-04-03T18:48:13Z")
You could well be right. I’m going off the distinction between domestic and foreign travel, and 4th Amendment protections that apply at borders/airports versus everywhere else. It would just be pretty weird for people’s money to have more protection than people themselves. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/92 "2014-04-03T19:23:38Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > You’d be Ok with a law forbidding George Soros from funding Human Rights Watch? I would be OK with a law that forbade him\* from funding their get-the-word-out operations\*, if it meant that every other billionaire was similarly handicapped with respect to the publicity/message operations of every other organization. Because that’s what we’re talking about here. We’re not talking about whether or not Soros can fund Human Rights Watch’s investigations into abuses of rights (assuming that’s what they do) or the Koch brothers’ funding of (hypothetically) oppo research operations aimed at Dem candidates for every Federal and state office in the country. None of that is speech, in and of itself. But with respect to the operation of a democracy, I’m very much a small-d democrat. I want a playing field that, as much as possible, equalizes everyone’s opportunity to make a difference with respect to who wins elections, what legislation gets passed, etc. If drastically limiting the amount of money in politics means that, say, the gun nuts can continue to have their way in Congress due to a greater willingness to vote just on that issue, well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Even if I’m unhappy with it, they’re _people_, and if a political battle between my sort of people and their sort of people is one that my people lose and their people win because there are more of them, or because they’re more passionate about the issue, well, it sucks to be us, and it’s great to be them. But when you have issues with a lot of people on one side, and a relative handful of people but a lot of money on the other side, and the money carries the day for the tiny minority, then democracy is getting screwed, good and hard. And if that happens _routinely_, then we don’t really have a democracy, do we? ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/93 "2014-04-03T19:37:51Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, wouldn’t this decision forbid **any** aggregate limits? Congress can’t fix the problem by raising the aggregate limit? Here’s what the plurality opinion (note, however, that, since no opinion had a majority of the justices sign it, it’s not a precedent): \*"Contributing money to a candidate is an exercise of an individual’s right to participate in the electoral process through both political expression and political association. A restriction on how many candidates and committees an individual may support is hardly a “modest restraint” on those rights. The Government may no more restrict how many candidates or causes a donor may support than it may tell a newspaper how many candidates it may endorse. In its simplest terms, the aggregate limits prohibit an individual from fully contributing to the primary and general election campaigns of ten or more candidates, even if all contributions fall within the base limits. And it is no response to say that the individual can simply contribute less than the base limits permit: To require one person to contribute at lower levels because he wants to support more candidates or causes is to penalize that individual for “robustly exercis[ing]” his First Amendment rights. In assessing the First Amendment interests at stake, the proper focus is on an individual’s right to engage in political speech, not a collective conception of the public good. The whole point of the First Amendment is to protect individual speech that the majority might prefer to restrict, or that legislators or judges might not view as useful to the democratic process."\* The way I read this, it is meant to apply to any aggregate restriction, regardless of level. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/94 "2014-04-03T19:40:14Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > [Roberts] can’t lose his job. [nitpick]He could be impeached and convicted.[/nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/95 "2014-04-03T20:24:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Then why do they spend? False dichotomy The fact that you have to spend money to win an election does not mean that money alone wins an election. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/96 "2014-04-03T20:32:12Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > False dichotomy > > The fact that you have to spend money to win an election does not mean that money alone wins an election. Of course money doesn’t win it alone. I think a very good case could be made that it \*influences \*an election. If unlimited money gives one side a 1% boost in votes, it’s too much, imho. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/97 "2014-04-03T21:13:04Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > [nitpick]He could be impeached and convicted.[/nitpick] True. He could. He could also be kidnapped, or killed by rare earth elements. But I regard the chances of the latter as only marginally less likely. (In fact, the whole plot of a John Grisham novel revolves around killing a sitting Supreme Court justice in order to create a more favorable court makeup for review of an upcoming case.) But, yes – you’re right. Since impeaching a justice takes a two-thirds vote of the Senate, though, it seems safe to say that no matter which side Roberts appears to favor, there isn’t enough firepower in the Senate to get him to lose his job. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/98 "2014-04-03T21:42:44Z")
A Grisham novel? You were trapped on a Greyhound bus cross-country and had nothing else to read? Does your Church allow you to offer that as penance? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/99 "2014-04-03T21:53:00Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > A Grisham novel? You were trapped on a Greyhound bus cross-country and had nothing else to read? Does your Church allow you to offer that as penance? Truth told, **elucidator** , John Grisham is sort of a mythic figure to a bunch of attorneys, practicing and non-, and I include myself in the list. Not that I regard him as a Hemingway or Faulkner, but I know so many guys who are convinced that if they just had the time to write it, they too have that best-selling legal thriller novel inside their heads, waiting to burst forth and get sold, optioned for a movie, and star Julia Roberts (or her 2014 equivalent) at which point they can give up the day job and churn out a novel per year to fantastic advances and huge royalty checks (and casting approval on future feature films). And…er… I’m not immune to that fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/100 "2014-04-03T22:43:35Z")
So our elections can now be bought by the highest bidder? Thanks a lot SCOTUS. Bunch of idiots with their heads up their ass. The influence of special interest groups and PACs was bad enough before. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168.md?page=6)