Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 2014

McCutcheon v. Federal Election Comm'n

134 S. Ct. 1434 | 188 L. Ed. 2d 468 | 2014 U.S. LEXIS 2391 | 82 U.S.L.W. 4217 | 572 U.S. 185 | 24 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 639

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Takeaway

In short, the Court invalidated federal aggregate contribution caps, holding that lawful base limits—not total caps on support for many candidates and committees—are the constitutionally permissible primary tool for combating quid pro quo corruption.

Background

Federal law imposed both “base limits” and aggregate limits on individual federal campaign contributions. Base limits capped what a donor could give to any one candidate, party committee, or PAC. Aggregate limits capped the donor’s total contributions to all federal candidates and political committees during a two-year election cycle. For the 2013–2014 cycle, the aggregate ceiling was $123,200.

Shaun McCutcheon had contributed within the applicable base limits but alleged that the aggregate caps prevented him from giving to additional candidates and party committees. The Republican National Committee also challenged the limits because it wished to receive contributions that the aggregate cap barred. McCutcheon and the RNC sued in the District Court for the District of Columbia, claiming that the aggregate limits violated the First Amendment.

A three-judge District Court denied a preliminary injunction and dismissed the suit. It held that the aggregate limits worked with the base limits as a coherent anticorruption system because they prevented donors from evading the per-recipient caps by routing money through multiple committees. McCutcheon and the RNC appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

Issues

Issue #1

What level of First Amendment scrutiny applies to the aggregate limits on political contributions?

Holding

The Court applied Buckley’s “closely drawn” standard for contribution limits and held that the aggregate limits fail even that standard; it therefore did not decide whether strict scrutiny should apply.

Reasoning

Buckley v. Valeo distinguishes contribution limits from expenditure limits. Although both implicate core political expression and association, Buckley treated contribution limits as imposing a comparatively lesser burden and allowed them only when they serve a sufficiently important governmental interest through means closely drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgment of associational freedoms.

The Court did not revisit Buckley’s contribution-expenditure distinction because the result did not depend on choosing between strict scrutiny and the closely drawn test. Under either formulation, the Court had to assess the fit between the Government’s anticorruption objective and the aggregate limits’ broad restriction on political participation.

The aggregate cap did more than regulate the amount a person could give to a particular candidate. Once a donor reached the cap, it prohibited any further contribution—even a small contribution to another candidate or cause that remained well below every applicable base limit. The Court regarded that as a serious burden on political expression and association, particularly for donors seeking to support a wide range of candidates and policy concerns.

Issue #2

Whether Buckley’s approval of an earlier aggregate-contribution limit controlled the challenge to BCRA’s aggregate limits.

Holding

No. Buckley did not conclusively control because it addressed the earlier limit only briefly and against a materially different statutory and regulatory backdrop.

Reasoning

Buckley upheld a $25,000 aggregate limit largely because it could prevent a donor from evading the $1,000 per-candidate limit by making massive unearmarked contributions to committees or parties likely to support a particular candidate. The Court characterized the aggregate limit as a corollary of the valid base limit, but devoted only three sentences to that question and noted that the parties had not fully addressed it.

Since Buckley, Congress and the FEC had added more targeted anticircumvention protections. Contributions to PACs are now subject to base limits; affiliated committees are treated as a single committee for contribution-limit purposes; and broad earmarking rules prohibit direct or indirect efforts to direct money through intermediaries to a candidate.

Those later protections substantially reduced the danger that a donor could use committees as conduits for massive, attributable contributions to one candidate. Because the challenged limits operated in this changed legal environment, and because McCutcheon raised arguments not fully considered in Buckley, the Court gave the current aggregate limits independent constitutional review.

Issue #3

Whether BCRA’s aggregate limits on individual contributions violate the First Amendment.

Holding

Yes. The aggregate limits were unconstitutional because they did little, if anything, to prevent quid pro quo corruption or circumvention of valid base limits, while substantially restricting protected political participation.

Reasoning

The Court held that campaign-finance restrictions may target only quid pro quo corruption or its appearance: a direct exchange of official acts for money. Government may not restrict contributions merely to reduce the amount of money in politics, equalize political influence, or limit the access and gratitude that naturally accompany support for candidates and parties. Ingratiation and access, standing alone, are not corruption.

The base limits remained intact because they directly restrict the size of a donor’s contribution to a particular candidate or committee. But the aggregate limits operated differently: Congress had determined that a contribution up to the base limit was permissible, yet the aggregate cap barred the same contribution to a tenth candidate after a donor had supported nine others. The Court found no coherent theory under which a contribution that is noncorrupting when made to one candidate becomes corrupting merely because the donor has made lawful contributions to several others.

The Government principally defended the aggregate limits as a safeguard against circumvention of base limits. The Court found the proposed scenarios too speculative, often unlawful under earmarking rules, or practically implausible. A donor cannot control a recipient’s use of contributed money, cannot earmark funds to a candidate through intermediaries, cannot create or control a proliferating network of affiliated PACs, and is limited in how much the donor can give to any PAC.

The Court also stressed that actual campaign-finance practice did not show a serious threat of rerouting. Candidates, party committees, and PACs generally spend received funds on their own activities rather than transfer them to a particular candidate. National parties and state parties devoted only small portions of their funds to direct candidate contributions or coordinated expenditures, which undercut the claim that lifting aggregate limits would commonly permit donors to funnel massive sums to one candidate.

The limits were not closely drawn because Congress had less speech-restrictive options. It could impose targeted restrictions on transfers among party committees and candidates, require certain contributions to be placed in nontransferable accounts, strengthen earmarking rules, or restrict particular donor-recipient relationships that create a concrete risk of circumvention. Disclosure likewise informs voters and deters corruption without imposing a ceiling on contributions.

The Court rejected the Government’s alternative argument that a large check made up of lawful, base-limit-compliant contributions to many party entities is itself corrupting. Broad support for a party may make party leaders grateful, but treating that ordinary political responsiveness as quid pro quo corruption would improperly convert support for shared political beliefs into a basis for sweeping regulation.

Concurrences

Justice Thomas

Reasoning

Justice Thomas agreed that the aggregate limits were unconstitutional, but he would have gone further than the plurality. In his view, Buckley’s distinction between contributions and expenditures lacks a sound constitutional basis and unjustifiably gives lesser protection to contributions, which help generate and disseminate political speech.

He rejected Buckley’s premise that a contribution is merely indirect or “proxy” speech. Direct expenditures also commonly rely on intermediaries such as advertising agencies and media outlets, and contributions allow people without the resources to buy advertisements themselves to amplify candidates and messages they support.

Thomas also concluded that the plurality’s recognition of the burden imposed by aggregate limits undermined Buckley’s remaining rationale for treating contribution limits as only marginal speech restrictions. If forcing a donor to give smaller amounts to more candidates burdens political participation, then limiting the size of a contribution directly restrains political communication as well.

He would overrule Buckley and apply strict scrutiny to contribution limits. On that approach, the aggregate limits would plainly fail because they are broad prophylactic caps on core political speech and association.

Dissents

Justice Breyer

Reasoning

Justice Breyer, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, maintained that Buckley had already upheld aggregate limits as a valid means of preventing evasion of base limits. He viewed the Court’s contrary decision as an unjustified overruling of precedent based on the plurality’s own assessment of political realities rather than a developed factual record.

The dissent rejected the plurality’s narrow definition of corruption as only an explicit exchange of official action for money. In Breyer’s view, corruption also includes the undue influence, privileged access, and institutional distortion that arise when large donors can obtain special responsiveness from public officials. Preventing that broader form of corruption protects, rather than conflicts with, First Amendment values because democratic speech matters only if public opinion can meaningfully influence government action.

Breyer relied heavily on McConnell v. FEC, which upheld restrictions on soft-money contributions to political parties based on evidence that large donations bought access and influence even without proof of outright bribery. He argued that the plurality’s narrow quid pro quo definition could not be reconciled with McConnell’s holding, despite the plurality’s assertion that McConnell remained intact.

The dissent argued that removing the aggregate cap created practical avenues for donors to give millions of dollars to a party and potentially direct the benefits to particular candidates. A donor could give the maximum amount to every national and state party committee through a joint fundraising committee; could combine contributions to party entities and candidates in a multimillion-dollar check; or could use a large network of multicandidate PACs to channel substantial sums to favored candidates.

Breyer disputed the plurality’s reliance on earmarking, affiliation, and contribution rules as adequate substitutes for aggregate limits. Those rules often require proof of a donor’s actual knowledge or control, which can be difficult to establish. In his view, the hypothetical circumvention methods were not illegal or fanciful; they reflected the real-world complexity of party fundraising and political committees.

Finally, the dissent objected to invalidating Congress’s scheme without a fuller evidentiary record. Whether aggregate limits realistically prevent corruption or circumvention involves empirical judgments about campaign practices, and Congress was better positioned than courts to make those judgments. The dissent would have affirmed the District Court and sustained the aggregate limits.