Week 2 EOC: Supreme Court Issues

The Supreme Court issue that I chose to write about is the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission case.

On October 8th, the Supreme Court heard the case of McCutcheon and RNC (Republican National Committee) v. Federal Election Commission. The summary of the case is that Mr. McCutcheon, a wealthy business man from Alabama, wants to eliminate the term limit that a campaign contributor could make to an individual candidate, a PAC (Political Action Committee), or a political party. Of course, the republicans agree with this. “President Obama reprised his role as constitutional-scholar-in-chief, arguing that “there aren't a lot of functioning democracies around the world that work this way, where you can basically have millionaires and billionaires bankrolling whoever they want, however they want, in some cases undisclosed.”
(http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/361427/more-mccutcheon-v-fec-ammon-simon)

The Supreme Court has a complicated case that it has to decide on during the next eight months. Mr. McCutcheon argues that the term limit on political contributions violates his first amendment speech rights. He also argues that by term limit, the Supreme Court cannot protect our campaign finance laws from corruption.

My personal feeling about this matter is that no one individual person or group of people should be allowed through their massive donations to influence an elected candidate in their future political decisions. "If state aggregate limits are overturned, the door will open for that tiny fraction of donors to give more -- possibly much more," Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute said in a statement. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/10/mccutcheon-v-fec-state-limits_n_4078149.html)

If the Supreme Court decides to rule in favor of Mr. McCutcheon, the decision will create a situation where a wealthy business man will donate ten million dollars to a PAC, which will distribute the ten million dollars within their membership to several hundred individuals, which in return will turn that money to one candidate, thus making the transaction legal. The future candidate will be very grateful to the original donor of the ten million dollars. "The question is whether the aggregate limits unconstitutionally inhibit the free speech of donors or are a necessary check on corruption, like a restriction on giving “a Maserati to the secretary of defense,” to cite an example used by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/27/u-s-solicitor-general-donald-verrilli-did-not-do-well-does-it-matter.html)