The Supreme Court handed down a decision today that, while not perfect, is nonetheless a victory for free speech.
The Supreme Court today struck down a Vermont law that established the nation’s strictest curbs on political campaign spending and contributions, ruling that the limits were so low that they violated candidates’ free speech rights.
The court voted 6-3 to declare unconstitutional a 1997 Vermont law, called Act 64, that severely limited the amounts of money that candidates for state office could spend on their campaigns and the amounts that individuals, organizations and political parties could contribute to those campaigns.
(…)
“We hold that both sets of limitations are inconsistent with the First Amendment,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in the court’s lead opinion in the case, Randall v. Sorrell.
While the ruling’s impact fell largely on Vermont, particularly with regard to the contribution limits, it could have broader implications, finance reform advocates said. With spending limits ruled out as unconstitutional, they said, reformers now are more likely to focus on other options, notably public financing of elections.
Breyer said in his opinion that Act 64 “burdens First Amendment interests by threatening to inhibit effective advocacy by those who seek election, particularly challengers.” Among other problems, he wrote, the act’s contribution limits “mute the voice of political parties” and “hamper participation in campaigns through volunteer activities.”
While the justices understand that many campaign finance regulations impose certain burdens, the majority found that Act 64 “goes too far,” Breyer wrote. “It disproportionately burdens numerous First Amendment interests, and consequently, in our view, violates the First Amendment.”
And, given what the Vermont law entailed, its clear the the Court reached the right decision:
The Vermont law imposed mandatory limits on the amounts a candidate for state office could spend in a two-year general election cycle, meaning the primary plus the general election. The restrictions ranged from $300,000 for candidates for governor to as little as $2,000 for candidates for state representative.
Strict contribution limits, the lowest in the nation, barred any individual from donating more than $400 to a candidate for governor, lieutenant governor or other statewide office; more than $300 to a state Senate candidate or more than $200 to an aspiring state representative. Act 64 also limited to $2,000 the amount any individual could give to a political party during the two-year cycle.
The Plaintiffs in the Vermont case also asked the Court to explicitly overrule its 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo, which was the first case in which the Court addressed campaign finance laws, and did so in a way that has confused the entire area for the past 30 years. The Court, however, did not go that far:
Some of the justices who voted to strike down the Vermont law also wanted to overturn a 1976 Supreme Court ruling in Buckley v. Valeo that they blame for confusion in campaign finance rules. In addition, the respondents in the case asked the court “in effect to overrule Buckley,” Breyer wrote.
But the principle of adherence to precedent prevailed, and the court ultimately declined to revisit the 1976 case, Breyer wrote, noting that “subsequent case law has not make Buckley a legal anomaly or otherwise undermined its basic legal principles.”
The 1976 ruling drew a distinction between limits on contributions and those on spending. It said contributions to candidates’ campaigns could be capped without limiting freedom of speech but that spending by candidates could not be restricted because that would curtail discussion of issues.
The Valeo Court’s distinction between campaign spending and campaign contributions is, of course, nonsensical. Except in the case of self-financed campaigns by millionaires, there cannot be one without the other, and to limit contributions means that Bill Gates can only give a certain amount of money to a political candidate, but could spend as much as he wanted if he ran himself. I still haven’t figured out how that makes sense.
Today’s decision will hopefully be a setback for the advocates of campaign contribution and spending limits at the state level and, hopefully, leader one day to the over-turning of the decision that upheld the plainly unconstitution McCain-Feingold law.
