Contractor Contribution Ban Defended by Watchdogs in Appeals Court Filing

Today, Democracy 21 joined the Campaign Legal Center and Public Citizen in filing an amici brief in Wagner v. FEC opposing an effort to overturn the 70-year-old ban on campaign contributions by federal contractors.  The case is currently on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia after a federal district court upheld the ban in November of 2012.

According to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer, an attorney on the amici brief:

The longstanding federal pay-to play provision being challenged in this case is a classic approach to preventing campaign funds from being used to exercise undue influence over the issuing of government contracts. These kind of pay-to-play provisions are used at the federal, state and local level to protect against the misuse of taxpayer funds and have been upheld by numerous courts who have recognized the need to protect the integrity of the government contracting process.

Plaintiffs in this case are attempting to bring down an approach that is widely used at all levels of government to prevent corruption. The federal district court well understood the stakes involved in this case in rejecting the arguments of the plaintiffs. We are hopeful that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, like many other courts, will also reject the attack being made by plaintiffs on this very important anti-corruption provision.

This restriction on campaign contributions from persons and entities contracting with the federal government was enacted in 1940 to address corruption in federal contracting in the wake of persistent scandals, most notably the “Democratic campaign book” scandal.

In November 2012, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the FEC, finding that the law was enacted to “prevent corruption and the appearance thereof and, in so doing, to protect the integrity of the electoral system by ensuring that federal contracts were awarded based on merit.”  The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 filed a brief in the district court defending the constitutionality of the government contractor ban and in support of the FEC’s motion for summary judgment.