Trump’s $580,600 Per Couple Fundraiser is the Direct Result of McCutcheon v. FEC – Wertheimer piece
Enclosed for your information is a piece by Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer entitled, “Trump’s $580,600 Per Couple Fundraiser Tomorrow is the Direct Result of the Supreme Court’s Decision in McCutcheon v. FEC that was ‘Divorced from Reality'” which was published on Medium on February 14, 2020. Read the full article here or below.
Trump’s $580,600 Per Couple Fundraiser Tomorrow is the Direct Result of the Supreme Court’s Decision in McCutcheon v. FEC that was “Divorced from Reality”
By Fred Wertheimer | February 14, 2020 | Medium
President Trump is holding a fundraiser tomorrow in Palm Beach, FL, at which contributions of $580,600 per couple are being raised for Trump’s re-election bid.
The ability of Trump to raise these astronomical amounts of influence money from billionaires and multimillionaires is a direct result of the Supreme Court’s utter failure to understand the nation’s campaign finance laws or the implications of its decision.
In McCutcheon v. FEC (2014), the Supreme Court in a misguided 5 to 4 decision struck down the aggregate limit on the total amount of money an individual could give to all political party committees in a two-year election cycle. The aggregate limit was enacted in the 1974 Watergate reforms, was upheld by the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo and had been in effect for forty years. (The Court also struck down the aggregate limit on total contributions by an individual to candidates.)
An amicus brief filed in the McCutcheon case by Democracy 21, Public Citizen and the law firm WilmerHale (on behalf of then-Rep. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. David Price) warned the Court about what would happen if they struck down the aggregate limit on contributions to parties. We stated in our brief:
Absent aggregate contribution limits, candidates and officeholders would be permitted to solicit massive donations to their parties and fellow candidates, explicitly and directly from their donors. […]
[C]andidates and parties often create joint fundraising committees to receive combined contributions from a single donor to be allocated, up to the applicable per-contribution limit for the relevant election cycles, to as many national, state, and local party committees and candidates as possible. Without aggregate limits, such practices would easily allow candidates and officeholders to solicit and receive contributions that substantially exceed $1 million.
The U.S. Solicitor General made the same arguments in defense of the aggregate limits.
In the majority opinion, however, Chief Justice Roberts snidely wrote about the examples given that “these scenarios, along with others that have been suggested, are either illegal under current campaign finance laws or divorced from reality.”
I would submit that if the Chief Justice read The Washington Post this morning about the Trump fundraiser, he would understand that it is he who was “divorced from reality,” not the defenders of the aggregate limits. And the Chief Justice would also understand that the fundraising that he thought would be illegal is being legally carried out tomorrow by Trump.
Justice Alito also snidely wrote in a concurring opinion that the examples given were “wild hypotheticals that are not obviously plausible.”
I would submit that if Justice Alito read The Washington Post this morning, he would understand that the examples given were not “wild hypotheticals,” but examples of political reality that will play out tomorrow at the Trump fundraiser.
The Roberts Supreme Court has been destroying the nation’s campaign finance laws without a clue about the impact of its decisions or the enormous damage it is doing to our political system. This holds true not just for the McCutcheon decision, but for the Citizens United decision as well.
The Supreme Court has decided that the Court, not Congress, should write the nation’s campaign finance laws. In remaking the nation’s campaign finance laws, the Supreme Court has done grave harm to the American people and to the goal of preventing political money corruption in Washington.
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