Republicans File A Lawsuit Challenging Campaign Contribution Limit
With the Supreme Court upholding the 1st amendment rights of citizens exercising their political speech through corporate political expenditures, Republicans have decided to challenge another government limitation on political activities: The cap on campaign contributions.
From the Washington Post:
Current law dictates that one person may give no more than $2,500 to a political candidate in one election, and $30,800 each year to one political party committee, such as the RNC. The new court case doesn’t challenge those limits, but targets another one: the overall cap of $117,000 in each election cycle, along with separate caps for the total amount one person can give to candidates and to parties. Contributions to super PACs are not included in the caps.
I’ve never understood why there should be any limit on political contributions. If political spending is political speech and protected by the 1st amendment – and that’s the standard the Supreme Court has upheld – then there should be no limits.
Putting a cap to contributions is like putting a cap on the number of nice things (or bad things, for that matter) you can say about a candidate.
I say get rid of all the limits, and simply require that ever dollar contributed be disclosed.
Tags: fec, free speech, political contributions
