Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Campaign Finance Contribution Limits from Individuals Directly to Politicians

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could change campaign finance as much as the infamous Citizen's United decision of 2010, which allowed unlimited political donations from corporations and labor unions.

That decision has been unpopular with the public, though most scholars agree it is on solid legal flooring, prompting calls for a constitutional amendment to limit the amount of money that large organizations can pump into political campaigns.

The new case, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, deals with so-called "hard money," donations from wealthy individuals directly to individual politicians. Shaun McCutheon, an investor and Republican donor, brought the suit claiming that the current limits on individual contributions violate his free speech.

Currently, an individual may not give more than $117,000 directly to candidates over a two-year period.

Since Citizen's United invalidated limits on donations by corporations, the judicial climate is good for McCutheon. It may be hard for the Supreme Court to justify donation limits in the wake of the Citizen's United ruling, and McCutheon may win the case as a matter of consistency.

But the Court has a great deal of leeway in how they rule. In the most narrow outcome, the Court can simply say that McCutheon himself can increase his donations, due to some abridgement of his rights that only applies in his specific situation.

Campaign finance activists are more afraid that the Court will make a sweeping ruling that invalidates all restrictions on individual contributions to candidates nationwide, a move that could open the floodgates to massive amounts of highly-targeted cash in political races. Wealthy donors would no longer need to trust the managers of political action committees to dole out their funds; instead, they could simply write a check to their favorite candidate, or even themselves if they choose to run for office.

And if that happens, the next move for the Court could be to strike down restrictions on corporate donations to individual politicians.

The Court has invalidated every restriction on campaign donations that has come before it since John Roberts became chief justice in 2005. There is no reason to think they will stop now.