Citizens V Fec Quotes

Here’s what I think it should entail: First, we must overturn, through a constitutional amendment, the Citizens United decision, as well as the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo ruling, which introduced the absurd notion that spending money on behalf of a candidate or a political party is a form of protected speech. Moreover, we must fight to overturn the 2014 McCutcheon v. FEC decision, which struck down limits on how much an individual can contribute to a national party and to a candidate’s campaign

By the time Citizens United’s case reached the federal court system, however, there were signs that the Supreme Court might be willing to soften its position on direct corporate expenditures. In its 2007 opinion in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (551 U.S. 449), the Court carved out some significant exemptions that allowed corporate funding for express advocacy. In that case, Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (WRTL) had run afoul of the FEC for airing ads that were critical of Democratic Wisconsin Senator Russell Feingold’s voting record on abortion, even though the group did not explicitly tell voters to withhold support from him. The group’s defense was that because its ads were ostensibly informative on a policy dimension, they should not be considered “electioneering” and should be protected speech. The Court agreed, holding that in order to be banned under the BCRA electioneering rules, an ad’s only purpose must be to expressly advocate the election or defeat of a named candidate. In formulating their opinion in the case, Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues in the majority positioned themselves as defenders of speech rights, writing that “the First Amendment requires us to err on the side of protecting political speech rather than suppressing it.

In June, the Supreme Court informed the parties that it wanted to hear new arguments in the case. The parties were instructed to argue a new question: “For the proper disposition of this case, should the Court overrule either or both Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the part of McConnell v. FEC which addresses the facial validity of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002?”11 The order to reargue was a clear signal that the Supreme Court was willing to consider whether those decisions—which held that corporate spending during elections could be banned in most conditions—could stand against the First Amendment.

The Supreme Court decided in Citizens United v. FEC (558 U.S. 310 (2010)) that although corporations and labor unions were still barred from contributing money directly to federal candidates, they could spend funds from their treasury to purchase advertising to support or attack candidates by name. At the heart of the Court’s logic was the holding that corporate spending—so long as the money did not go to campaigns as contributions—was tantamount to political speech, which was subject to First Amendment protections and could therefore not be lawfully limited. Following the lead of the Supreme Court on this question, subsequent lower court decisions held that any group wishing to spend money to communicate a message (but not to contribute to candidates) could therefore raise unlimited contributions from both private citizens and corporations. This was an unprecedented expansion of not only outside groups’ ability to spend money in federal elections, but also of the capacity of donors to channel their money to groups with the aim of communicating a political message.

Indeed, the years since Citizens United have seen an explosion in the number of independent expenditure–only committees (super PACs) registered with the FEC. Approximately eighty such organizations existed during the 2010 election, spending roughly $90 million during that cycle (Garrett 2013). At the dawn of the 2012 election cycle in July 2011, 108 super PACs had registered with the FEC.9 As of September 2013, that number has risen to 726.10 Meanwhile, a similar trend has occurred with so-called “hybrid PACs” that could accept and spend unlimited contributions via noncontribution accounts consistent with Carey v. FEC. Between the FEC’s August 2011 opinion in Carey and the end of that year, thirteen hybrid PACs formed; another ten followed in the first six weeks of 2012 (Levinthal 2012). Ultimately, forty-seven such organizations registered with the FEC during the 2012 campaign.11

In June 2011, the FEC and NDPAC reached an agreement in the case (Carey v. FEC, No. 11–259-RMC D. D.C. 2011). The D.C. District Court subsequently issued a stipulated order to halt the FEC from enforcing contribution limitations on PACs when money is contributed to an account that exists solely to hold money destined for independent expenditures.

With regard to whether individuals could be legally subjected to contribution limits if SpeechNow or other groups had no intention of contributing to candidates for office, the Court of Appeals looked to Citizens United. There, the Appeals Court justices found a clear answer. “Because of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. FEC,” they wrote, “the analysis is straightforward. [In Citizens United], the Court held that the government has no anti-corruption interest in limiting independent expenditures” (10). Given that the only legitimate rationale the Supreme Court had traditionally recognized for regulating political money was the government’s anticorruption interest, and because its opinion in Citizens United held that independent expenditures (regardless of size) are not inherently corrupting absent coordination between a group and a candidate, the Appeals Court determined that SpeechNow was free to accept contributions of any size. The majority put it rather succinctly: “No matter which standard of review governs contribution limits, the limits on contributions to SpeechNow cannot stand” (16).

Since the decision in SpeechNow, a number of campaign finance cases have made their way through the system, and most have sought to chip away further at the regulatory framework. Perhaps the most notable of such cases decided to date is Carey v. FEC. At issue in Carey was a natural second question in light of the holding in SpeechNow: If super PACs could form for the sole purpose of channeling unlimited money from donors to mass communications, were there circumstances in which traditional PACs could do the same? By 2010, traditional PACs had been making both independent expenditures and donations to federal candidates for more than sixty years. However, under the FECA and the BCRA, donations to PACs were limited, just as they were for candidates, and PACs, in turn, could only give candidates $5,000 per election cycle. These donations were certainly useful for candidates, but for PACs looking to invest, the ability to make unlimited independent expenditures surely posed an attractive option as well. Simply, the SpeechNow decision dramatically changed the calculus for existing PACs. If, some groups reasoned, they maintained a separate account that would fund only communications (and not donations to candidates), then surely they could accept unlimited contributions to that account. The federal courts had held that contributions posed some risk for increasing the appearance of corruption, and so any contributions made to PACs for the purpose of bundling into larger ones destined for campaign coffers would be subject to hard-money limitations. But if donations to groups who promised to make no contributions to candidates could not be limited, then established PACs saw an opportunity to be both a contribution bundler and a super PAC.