PRESS RELEASE
Tuesday, June 1, 2004
Contact: James Bopp, Jr., General Counsel
Phone 812/232-2434; Fax 812/235-3685
madisoncenter@aol.com

 

Campaign Finance Returns to High Court
 

Campaign finance issues return to the United States Supreme Court as attorneys from the Madison Center for Free Speech asked the court to review a lower court decision upholding the constitutionality of Montana's lowest-in-the-nation contribution limits, and also the state's "aggregate PAC contribution limit" that limits how much money candidates can accept from all political committees combined.

The provisions were enacted by a 1994 ballot initiative intended to solve the problem of there being "just way too much money in Montana politics." The contribution limits range as low as $100 for legislative or local races up to $400 for governor or $200 for other statewide office. According to the Madison Center's petition, the case "raises the question of whether contributions limits can ever be too low to survive First Amendment scrutiny."

As James Bopp, Jr., lead counsel in the case, "We had a four-day trial in this case that plainly demonstrated that these limits have done what they were designed to do: dramatically reduce the amount of money that candidates can spend communicating with the electorate. We also showed that electoral competition has been harmed as a lot of candidates realize the limits will prevent them from introducing themselves to the electorate, and so they don't run at all. That's exactly the sort of evidence the Supreme Court has always emphasized wasn't there when they have upheld less restrictive limits." For example, Bopp noted that total spending by legislative candidates had dropped by 30% after the limits were enacted, and that fundraising for other offices had fallen even farther. He also pointed to Montana's steep decline in competitive legislative elections since the limits went into effect.

Also challenged were Montana's aggregate PAC limit, which caps total PAC contributions to $1,250 for house candidates and $2,000 for senate candidates. This limit had forced several candidates to return Montana Right to Life PAC's contributions because they had already "PAC'd out" on contributions from other PACs. According to Bopp, "these aggregate limits rest on the notion that somehow a contribution of any size from a pro-life PAC becomes too corrupting to be tolerated if the candidate has already taken too much from PACs representing cattle ranchers or insurance companies. My client was completely prohibited from contributing to these candidates because they had taken contributions from totally unrelated interests. That's preposterous." Bopp also noted that federal law allowed candidates to accept several times more money from a single PAC than Montana allowed its candidates to accept from all PACs combined.

The case is Montana Right to Life Association v. Eddleman, No-03-1550. The Ninth Circuit opinion is reported at 343 F.3d 1085.

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