SCOTUS Strikes Down Aggregate Limits On Campaign Contributions - Granite Grok

SCOTUS Strikes Down Aggregate Limits On Campaign Contributions

“The Supreme Court Tom Steyer must be ecstatic.  He can now donate the max limit to every Democrat from here to his Environmental Nirvana and it’s not illegal.  But then so can everyone else.  That would be because SCOTUS just struck down the aggregate limit on total donations by an individual to all candidates on free speech grounds.

It is a modern reality.  You need to spend money in 21st century America to reach enough people to have your voice heard.

Without money you can’t compete on first amendment grounds.  And whenever an elected official craps kittens over outside spending, what they are really doing is trying to establish a speech-cartel controlled by…elected officials and government.  This is true regardless of which side the so-called limitations on how much or when you can speak come from.

And since Super PAC’s on both sides can collect money in the name of folks with common ideological goals–effectively operating like speech lobbyists for the masses–the idea of the aggregate limit for an individual doesn’t make any sense–not that it ever did.

Hot Air…

Right now you’re capped at$48,600when donating directly to candidates and $123,200 total, including party committees; if you want to give more than that, too bad. The base limit is there to prevent you from dropping $10 million on a congressman, essentially buying his seat for him, and then having him do your bidding forever. It’s supposed to be a stumbling block to corruption. The aggregate limit is there because … I’m not sure why, and neither are the five conservatives on the Supreme Court.

From the ruling…

Congress may regulate campaign contributions to protect against corruption or the appearance of corruption. See, e.g., Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 26–27. It may not, however, regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics, or to restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others. See, e.g., Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett,…

This will probably improve transparency as folks with the bucks opt to give directly to candidates, by-passing the middle man.  Those donations will be visible instead of invisible.

That’s not to say the uber-wealthy like Soros, Steyer, Lewis, or others on the left won’t shovel cash into Super-PAC’s or other third-party non-profits to hide their influence on the PAC’s priorities. They will.  But being able to write a maximum donation in the open, to every candidate you want to support, actually increases visibility.  We will be able to see who is writing the checks and based on the behavior of the legislator make determinations about pay to play or other forms of influence peddling.

Back here in New Hampshire, we still have elected officials looking to game the system in their own favor by making it harder to speak when you need to most.  I have to wonder if this ruling will remind them that money is inseparable from speech, and that their machinations to limit its use under any scheme they might concoct should be rightly viewed as favoring no one but those already in power.

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