The Supreme Court's Fat Cat Decision Is OK - Page 2

The second part of the Court's opinion is more interesting. The Court said,

Section 319(a) . . . raises the limits only for the non-self-financing candidate and does so only when the self-financing candidate's expenditure of personal funds causes the OPFA [Opposition Personal Funds Amount] threshold to be exceeded. We have never upheld the constitutionality of a law that imposes different contribution limits for candidates who are competing against each other, and we agree with Davis that this scheme impermissibly burdens his First Amendment right to spend his own money for campaign speech.

That is the crux of the decision.

In an earlier case, Buckley v. Valeo, heavily relied upon in Davis, the Court had

soundly rejected a cap on a candidate's expenditure of personal funds to finance campaign speech. We held that a candidate ... has a First Amendment right to engage in the discussion of public issues and vigorously and tirelessly to advocate his own election and that a cap on personal expenditures imposes a substantial, clea[r] and "direc[t]" restraint on that right.

This was a per curiam  decision [generally short and non-controversial decisions issued in the name of the court rather than in the name of specific justices], in which Mr. Justice Stevens took no part; in other respects, it was more or less unanimous. The validity of Buckley was not substantially in question in Davis. Filthy Rich Fat Cat politicians, members of the obnoxious Ruling Elite, therefore were and still are allowed to spend as much as they desire of their own funds on their own political campaigns. The Buckley Court held that diminution of their ability to do so lacks any cognizable public interest.

What was at issue in Davis was rather different. Davis deals with the consequences of those obnoxious fat cats doing so. Under the law held unconstitutional by the five - four Court majority, the consequences are too severe and therefore unconstitutional. The Majority Opinion said,

a candidate who wishes to exercise that right has two choices: abide by a limit on personal expenditures or endure the burden that is placed on that right by the activation of a scheme of discriminatory contribution limits.

What are those discriminatory contribution limits?

Article Author: Dan Miller

Dan was graduated from Yale University in 1963 and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1966. He practiced law in Washington, D.C., retiring in 1996 to sail with his wife in the Caribbean. They settled in a rural area in Panama in 2001. …

Visit Dan Miller's author page — Dan Miller's Blog