Vinny Sidhu
Legal Intern, Manhattan Institute's Center for Legal Policy

This week, the Supreme Court is considering a potentially-transformative case that could alter the range of free speech protection granted under the First Amendment. In McCutcheon v. FEC, the Court must decide whether aggregate limits on the amount a person ($48,600 for direct contributions to candidates; $74,600 for donations to non candidate-affiliated political committees) can donate during an election cycle is constitutionally permissible.

Specifically, the Court's constitutionally-relevant precursor here is Buckley v. Valeo, which held that contributions could be limited due to the fear of perpetuating corruption by allowing a donor to make unlimited donations to a single candidate in exchange for political favors. Ostensibly, this appears to be a legitimate concern, possibly even to the extent of allowing for a qualified restriction on political free speech.

But in a larger sense, the specific principle laid out in Buckley cannot been extended out to encompass an area in which the Court's reasoning does not logically extend. The end as stated in Buckley is to subvert potential political corruption, through the means of restricting the amount an individual can donate to candidates for federal office. If we extend this logic to McCutcheon, the stated proposition would stand as: If we restrict the amount of money an individual can give as an aggregate to various candidates, then we are furthering the end of subverting potential political corruption.

Now, the Federal Election Campaign Act already restricts individual donations to a single candidate to $5,200 ($2,600 for primary; $2,600 for general election). Using the Buckley logic, these means can seem to be tailored towards preventing political corruption by preventing a candidate from being beholden to a donor rather than an idea. However, this logic falls apart when we try to say that a limit on the aggregate amount a donor can make furthers this same end. By this extension, a donor could be restricted from donating even nominal amounts to a candidate if the donor has already hit the aggregate ceiling. In oral arguments, Chief Justice Roberts addressed this exact point:

"The concern," Chief Justice John Roberts noted, "is you have somebody who is very interested, say, in environmental regulation, and very interested in gun control. The current system, the way the anti-aggregation system works, is he's got to choose. Is he going to express his belief in environmental regulation by donating to more than nine people there? Or is he going to choose the gun control issue?"

An aggregate cap stands as a forced rationing of political thought as expressed, ironically, through the Buckley proposition that money in service of political speech is protected by the First Amendment. Because the latter statement is a long-standing legal fact, the logical disconnect becomes more apparent.

Moreover, because we are dealing with First Amendment protections, the means must be given "strict scrutiny" examination. The Buckley court seemingly found donor limits to individual candidates to be narrowly-tailored means to the end of rooting out potential quid pro quos.

In order to extend that to McCutcheon, the Court would have to say that the additional burden on political speech created by aggregation caps is either 1) still narrowly-tailored to the anti-corruption end or 2) come up with a new justification for the aggregation caps that can pass strict scrutiny.

Finally, because Super PACs are largely funded by wealthier donors, the aggregate caps would destroy the influence and impact of smaller donors in a variety of political arenas, while allowing larger donors to increase their influence in the political process; this would abrogate the intention of campaign finance laws in the first place. Considering these legal and policy implications, the Court should take this opportunity to clear the way for free expression of political thought.