# 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:** 7
**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 4, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/121 "2014-04-04T16:41:11Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > The earlier point was that if there is a categorical ruling that money is not speech, then there’s no constitutional principle forbidding a statute that says something like “non-candidates may not spend more than $100,000 to fund messages concerning candidates for office within 90 days of an election.” Such a law would mean Jon Stewart couldn’t criticize Sarah Palin, etc. There has to be a limit. At some point, the link between money and speech is so attenuated that it is no longer protectable. Earlier I pointed out that a campaign contribution can as easily be spent on a rally or on a hotel room for a staffer. I fail to see how the latter is even speech-like. ---
**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 4, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/122 "2014-04-04T16:54:34Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > There has to be a limit. At some point, the link between money and speech is so attenuated that it is no longer protectable. Earlier I pointed out that a campaign contribution can as easily be spent on a rally or on a hotel room for a staffer. I fail to see how the latter is even speech-like. If you accept that the freedom of speech extends to the instrumentalities of it (the typewriter or the stage, say), then I don’t think you can draw the line at hotel rooms or staffers. Both are also critical instrumentalities to effective speech. Moreover, are you really prepared to hold that a political candidate must spend his own money on, say, hotel rooms? I think the only thing you ensure with that is that only the rich will run for office. ---
**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 4, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/123 "2014-04-04T17:01:03Z")
No, but I’m willing to hold that donations for such purposes may permissibly be limited by Congress. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/124 "2014-04-04T17:01:21Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I think your attempts to draw lines between funding of their speech and funding of their research and investigations would be, in practice, impossible. They research so they can write reports, which are unequivocally speech. I don’t see what the problem is. If I spend a ton of money producing a report, which I then proceed to put in a desk drawer and forget about and never share with anyone, what sort of speech has taken place? As long as it’s still possible to not share it with anyone, that’s not speech yet. Any spending for the part where it’s still possible not to share it with anyone isn’t spending on speech. This is really a pretty easy line to draw. > [@](#): > > I’m very sympathetic to this concern. What I don’t see is an obvious way to prevent that which doesn’t cause more harm than good. Democracy. I mean, there’s all sorts of stuff that the Constitution is silent on that could be abused. At some point, you’ve got to say: a) Just because the Constitution doesn’t protect us from Bad Thing X, doesn’t mean X has been made mandatory, and b) what keeps X from being made mandatory is that it would be extremely difficult to get anyone to sign on to it. Consider, for instance, how difficult it had been, in the pre-_Citizens United_ period, to limit political spending. This was a period when such limits were regarded as Constitutional. But passing limits of any sort was a Herculean undertaking. If there were a Constitutional amendment stating that while speech was Constitutionally protected per the First Amendment, spending money on speech was not included in that protection, such limits would still be difficult to pass - even the common-sense ones. Maybe the absurd and ridiculous limits, OTOH, would magically sweep right through legislatures. And maybe I’ll be able to convert my refrigerator into a rocket to Jupiter. ---
**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 4, 2014, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/125 "2014-04-04T17:24:22Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Money is not the **only** thing that wins elections, but if it puts the preferred candidate over the top, the election has been bought. More importantly, if the candidate has any reason to **think** the money made the difference, the candidate has been bought. Sometimes, I’ve heard, megadonors give to both sides so the winner is sure to owe them. OK, so you were not talking about this case, but in general. I will ignore this then. ---
**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 4, 2014, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/126 "2014-04-04T17:26:58Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Which candidates does the NY Times give campaign contributions to? > > Yeah, I thought so. They don’t need to give a small amount of cash to a candidate, they just endorse a candidate which is of much more value to that candidate than the paltry per person contribution limit that is still in place. ---
**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 4, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/127 "2014-04-04T17:30:32Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > No, but I’m willing to hold that donations for such purposes may permissibly be limited by Congress. You do get that freedom of association is part of the 1st amendment. That is why the aggregate rule was shut down, it limited both political ex- pression and political association. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/128 "2014-04-04T17:57:10Z")
[Interesting alternate analysis of the effects of this decision:](http://www.salon.com/2014/04/04/dirty_secret_behind_mccutcheon_why_everyones_getting_the_winners_and_losers_wrong/) > [@](#): > > It’s unclear, though, how much of this rhetoric from the Democratic senators is put-on. If the chief effect of McCutcheon – other than increasing the amount of money in politics to even more otherworldly levels — is to deliver more power to the party committees in their battle for donors against Citizens United-empowered outside spending groups, then this ruling wouldn’t have been especially beneficial to the Kochs’ outside spending empire. And one can’t help but wonder if Schumer, one of the Democratic party’s most prolific fundraisers, isn’t even slightly pleased with his newly enhanced donor-shakedown powers. > > Furthermore, Democrats are fighting an uphill battle to retain control of the Senate — and keep Reid his title of majority leader — and McCutcheon should help them compete in key battleground states. For professional Democratic party fundraisers, then, McCutcheon serves as something akin to total victory. . . > > \ > > So there’s a split opinion among Democrats. Whereas Republican politicians and party fundraisers welcomed the decision, Democratic politicians publicly bemoan it while Democratic party fundraisers are delighted. (Big donors to both parties, meanwhile, are irritated that they’ll now have to fork over more cash to stay in their respective parties’ good graces.) > > The response that perhaps best bridged the Democrats’ two minds on McCutcheon was House minority leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s on Thursday. She didn’t take the easy path and just complain about how the Supreme Court had given Republicans another weapon, saying, as the Huffington Post reported, that the decision doesn’t put Democrats at a disadvantage. > > “Democrats can raise money. People care about our values,” she said. “We’ve out-raised everybody.” Still, she indicated exhaustion with this this never-ending “money war” — one in which you need to compete, if only to stay ahead of the other team. > > That feeling seems to underlie much of Democratic politicians annoyance with McCutcheon, even if it will allow the party to raise more money: that fundraising is now just becoming a timesuck with diminishing marginal returns. ---
**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 4, 2014, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/129 "2014-04-04T18:20:44Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > You do get that freedom of association is part of the 1st amendment. > > That is why the aggregate rule was shut down, it limited both political ex- > pression and political association. Yes. We are discussing limiting campaign contributions in the abstract, not the aggregate rule specifically. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/130 "2014-04-04T20:03:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Interesting alternate analysis of the effects of this decision:](http://www.salon.com/2014/04/04/dirty_secret_behind_mccutcheon_why_everyones_getting_the_winners_and_losers_wrong/) Indeed. That last bit is a pretty compelling argument for being able to limit money in politics: I’d argue that there’s a compelling public interest in ensuring that fundraising doesn’t eat up massive chunks of politicians’ time - which it already did before this decision, and this decision clearly won’t help that. Even beyond the question of who gets to influence the politicians, even a U.S. Senator’s day only has 24 hours, and you’d like them to be able to concentrate on doing a good job of being a Senator, rather than spending half their days raising money in order to continue being a Senator. ---
**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 4, 2014, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/131 "2014-04-04T22:06:51Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I don’t see what the problem is. If I spend a ton of money producing a report, which I then proceed to put in a desk drawer and forget about and never share with anyone, what sort of speech has taken place? > > As long as it’s still possible to not share it with anyone, that’s not speech yet. Any spending for the part where it’s still possible not to share it with anyone isn’t spending on speech. > > This is really a pretty easy line to draw. That’s not really workable at all. This would permit limiting someone from writing a book, or a newspaper article. Essentially anything could be limited until the point it is disseminated. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > There has to be a limit. At some point, the link between money and speech is so attenuated that it is no longer protectable. Earlier I pointed out that a campaign contribution can as easily be spent on a rally or on a hotel room for a staffer. I fail to see how the latter is even speech-like. The link is attenuated only if you take the position that money != speech. If I want my views known, I can purchase a publisher, pay for articles to be written to advance my ideas. That is speech. My paying for it while someone does the legwork to put it our there doesn’t make it not so. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/132 "2014-04-04T23:03:29Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > The link is attenuated only if you take the position that money != speech. If I want my views known, I can purchase a publisher, pay for articles to be written to advance my ideas. That is speech. My paying for it while someone does the legwork to put it our there doesn’t make it not so. Oh, that’s my position: money is money and speech is speech. SCOTUS apparently disagrees. I say that if money is speech, then the marketplace of ideas is rigged in favored of the monied. More importantly, the idea that a _campaign donation_ is speech is laughable. This post is speech. Your post is speech. An Amazon purchase is not speech, nor is a donation to a candidate. Those are different things. As for hiring a ghostwriter, that is akin to buying a book by Gingrich on Amazon. Not speech: something else. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2014, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/133 "2014-04-05T00:13:45Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > They don’t need to give a small amount of cash to a candidate, they just endorse a candidate which is of much more value to that candidate than the paltry per person contribution limit that is still in place. First, hardly anyone reads the editorials. Second, the _New York Times_, when thought about at all, is generally unpopular in middle America. Even in New York City, they can’t move elections – as not-mayor Christine Quinn could tell you. And I say that as a long-time admirer and subscriber. > [@rat\_avatar](#): > > Do I wish the decision had gone the other way for my own selfish reasons, yes. But overall this was the “right thing” for the court to do so This was a party-line vote. It is extremely unlikely that because of this, court conservatives are going to defend freedom of speech on some other case. This ruling doesn’t bother me. Its practical results are unpredictable. And there’s a liberal case to be made for it, in that it might bring back to candidates some of the money now going to more extreme special interest – often right-wing special interest – groups. But I’m all for the limits on contributions to an individual candidate, because I think that the bigger a contributor, the more they will be beholden to them. Maybe the Supremes will uphold those limits, or maybe they won’t. But they will do it as a political court, chosen through a democratic process, and acting politically. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/134 "2014-04-05T00:15:00Z")
withdrawn ---
**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 5, 2014, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/135 "2014-04-05T00:47:23Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > First, hardly anyone reads the editorials. > > Second, the _New York Times_, when thought about at all, is generally unpopular in middle America. Even in New York City, they can’t move elections – as not-mayor Christine Quinn could tell you. And I say that as a long-time admirer and subscriber. But some how giving $1776 is so much more evil when you give it to 20 candidates than 10 candidates? And we are not talking about editorials, we are taking about voter guides. If you don’t think that there is a significant amount of people who use those to vote you are extremely naive. It may not be the NYT but it would be “the stranger” or heck, almost any periodical that carries the straight dope column. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > This was a party-line vote. It is extremely unlikely that because of this, court conservatives are going to defend freedom of speech on some other case. > > This ruling doesn’t bother me. Its practical results are unpredictable. And there’s a liberal case to be made for it, in that it might bring back to candidates some of the money now going to more extreme special interest – often right-wing special interest – groups. But I’m all for the limits on contributions to an individual candidate, because I think that the bigger a contributor, the more they will be beholden to them. Maybe the Supremes will uphold those limits, or maybe they won’t. But they will do it as a political court, chosen through a democratic process, and acting politically. Oddly, no one on this thread seems to be willing to have a real debate on THIS ruling, or will justify why the rights which were effected were OK to abridge. “liberals” like this because it stacked the deck in their favor, not because it fit any “liberal” idea of freedom. But there are dozens of reasons why someone would call themselves “liberal” and being dedicated to protecting the fundamental rights of individuals is not a requirement to do so. If protecting the sanctity of the freedom of association and speech is a a “conservative” trait maybe I will have to see if they are accepting us godless, pro-equality, pro-choice, pro-labor folks…somehow I think that isn’t going to happen. So how about you explain why it is a liberal thing to limit the number of causes a person can be associated with? Outside of trying to prevent unpopular speech, why does the individual citizen not have the same rights that media companies and PACs have? Why are those orgs allowed “robust” political speech but the individual citizen of means must be gagged to “protect democracy?” Justify your position that I am on the “wrong side” and don’t make it sound like I am against all election reforms. Keep it on task as it relates to the claimed breach of rights in this case. I am betting you cannot. ---
**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 5, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/136 "2014-04-05T02:38:01Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Oh, that’s my position: money is money and speech is speech. SCOTUS apparently disagrees. > > I say that if money is speech, then the marketplace of ideas is rigged in favored of the monied. More importantly, the idea that a _campaign donation_ is speech is laughable. This post is speech. Your post is speech. An Amazon purchase is not speech, nor is a donation to a candidate. Those are different things. > > As for hiring a ghostwriter, that is akin to buying a book by Gingrich on Amazon. Not speech: something else. Of course the market place ideas favors the people who have money. Life favors the people who have money. So what. The principal of free speech is more important than some notion of equality of outcome. Money is speech. Walking in a park could be speech, just as a purchase at Amazon could be. Donating money to support the message of a candidate that you agree with most certainly is speech, just as advocating on their behalf would be. Paying someone else to advocate is speech too. Speech should be as broadly construed as possible. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2014, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/137 "2014-04-05T11:39:54Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > The principal of free speech is more important than some notion of equality of outcome. First of all, let me concede, if it is a concession, that when you stop someone from giving a million dollars to a candidate, you, in a small way, abridged someone freedom of speech. This is no problem for me because I see a balancing benefit. As for the constitutional issue, I do not regard the US Constitution as sacred, or even especially good as democratic constitutions go, and do not believe campaign contribution limits lead to broad restrictions on speech. So I would balance the harm to freedom of speech of limiting contributions, to an individual candidate, to $2,600, against the harm of having an officeholder beholden to a large contributor without whose continued patronage re-election prospects would be poor. And I think the harm of big contributions is greater. It is impossible to say what the right dollar limit should be, just as it is impossible to say what the right age cut-off is for child pornography. But there should be such necessarily arbitrary limits, and I support them. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/138 "2014-04-05T13:41:38Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > “Right of association” does not apply to commerce. Buying a whore is commerce, and so is buying a candidate or a party or an election. Point of clarification: you don’t buy whores, you rent their services. And prostitution should be legal. Candidates selling their services should be illegal in a democracy, since it flies in the face of what democracy is all about, which is representing the people who elected you. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/139 "2014-04-05T14:28:10Z")
I don’t see that this decision will have much PRACTICAL effect on electoral politics: PACs have already thoroughly corrupted the political process. The damage has been done. Our Congressmen are for sale, but they were bought by PACS in the last couple of election cycles, introducing new ways to buy them doesn’t change the game. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2014, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168/140 "2014-04-05T15:03:13Z")
If they’ve already chained bowling balls to your feet and thrown you into the lake, hardly matters if they pee in the lake after. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-strikes-down-aggregate-campaign-donation-limits/685168.md?page=8)