Supreme Court: Aggregate contribution caps unconstitutional

[Tilted]

The Supreme Court has just ruled that the 2-year limits on the total contributions that someone may make to political candidates, parties, and committees are unconstitutional. The government may still limit the amount that someone can contribute to each candidate or party or committee, but it can't limit the total that a person can contribute over a 2-year limit. So, e.g., someone could contribute the maximum allowed per-candidate to each and every candidate running for the House of Representatives and for the Senate.

Chief Justice Roberts announced the judgment of the Court and wrote an opinion joined by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Alito (so, technically, it isn't a majority opinion or even, really, the opinion of the Court). Justice Thomas concurred in the judgment and wrote his own opinion. That means there are 5 votes for the central finding, that aggregate contribution limits are unconstitutional, thus that is now the law of the land. Justice Breyer wrote a dissent, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Here are the opinions.

I'll follow up with some of the particulars of what the various Justices found.

 

[Tilted]

I don't think I agree with Justice Thomas on this one. But he should be given credit, he's consistently (at least more consistently than any other Justice) willing to say, in essence: To hell with precedent, precedent is wrong, we should throw it out, begin anew on a clean, un-perverted slate, and start interpreting the Constitution correctly. Stare decisis be damned, let's get it right.

And he's repeatedly shown that he's not afraid to step out on his own and insist that the Court should just get it right. How many unjoined concurring or dissenting opinions has he written? That's not because he's a clueless whacko, that's because his first priority, it would seem, is getting it right - not trying to avoid upsetting the apple cart too much. I don't always agree with him, but he deserves credit as a man of principle who works within what, to him, seems to be a clear job description.

As for this case, he would have thrown out the Court's decision in Buckley v Valeo (1976) and would treat political contributions the same as independent political expenditures. He wouldn't the government to limit them, believing that doing so would be a violation of First Amendment rights.

 

[This_person]

I don't think I agree with Justice Thomas on this one. But he should be given credit, he's consistently (at least more consistently than any other Justice) willing to say, in essence: To hell with precedent, precedent is wrong, we should throw it out, begin anew on a clean, un-perverted slate, and start interpreting the Constitution correctly. Stare decisis be damned, let's get it right.

And he's repeatedly shown that he's not afraid to step out on his own and insist that the Court should just get it right. How many unjoined concurring or dissenting opinions has he written? That's not because he's a clueless whacko, that's because his first priority, it would seem, is getting it right - not trying to avoid upsetting the apple cart too much. I don't always agree with him, but he deserves credit as a man of principle who works within what, to him, seems to be a clear job description.

As for this case, he would have thrown out the Court's decision in Buckley v Valeo (1976) and would treat political contributions the same as independent political expenditures. He wouldn't the government to limit them, believing that doing so would be a violation of First Amendment rights.

Concur