The Supreme Court has been asked formally to review a challenge to restrictions on “Soft Money” contributions to Political Parties, the last remaining major element of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Law passed in 2002.
The filing of a “Jurisdictional Statement” appealing to the High Court had been expected since a Lower Court ruling last fall, which rejected the Soft Money Challenge launched by the Republican Party of Louisiana.
The Party Committee sued the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Agency that enforces Restrictions on Campaign money to National, State and Local Parties.
The new Appeal, announced Jan. 6th but not yet docketed by the Supreme Court, gives the Court an opportunity to scrap or uphold the Restrictions on Political Party funding that have been in place for nearly 15 years. The case is being considered under streamlined procedures for Constitutional Challenges to Campaign Finance Laws, meaning that the Supreme Court must issue some type of ruling on the merits, though there’s no guarantee of an oral argument or written opinion.
The lower Court ruling, which was written by U.S. Circuit Judge Sri Srinivasan, said Courts have upheld Soft Money restrictions of the McCain-Feingold law in a series of cases going back to the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in McConnell v. FEC. The Campaign Finance Law was passed in 2002 and is named for its Primary sponsors, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.).
“We are not the first court to consider First Amendment challenges to the limits on state and local political parties’ use of soft-money donations,” Srinivasan wrote in a 20-page opinion. “We see no salient distinction between the First Amendment claims rejected in those cases and the challenge presented here.”
Srinivasan’s decision was joined by the other members of the Court Panel: U.S. District Judges Christopher Cooper and Tanya Chutkan. The ruling upheld provisions that set a $10,000 “hard money” annual limit per contributor on the amount a State Party Committee can raise for activities that could impact a Federal Election.
Lawyers for the FEC defended the Soft Money Provisions before the Lower Court, emphasizing that the previous Court rulings upholding the Law were based on an extensive record of apparent corruption of the Legislative process due to the influence of large Soft Money contributions to Political Party Committees.
While the FEC defended the Law in the Lower Court, the task of defending the Soft Money restrictions before the Supreme Court in the coming months will fall to U.S. Solicitor General’s Office, an arm of the Justice Department.
How DOJ handles this case under the Administration of President-Elect Trump could provide an early indication of whether the new Administration is prepared to uphold and enforce Campaign Finance restrictions, which many Republicans have criticized in the past.
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