SCOTUS strikes down "millionaire's amendment"
I don't understand campaign finance laws very well at all. The McCain/Feingold law seems to have made it all very complex. But it sounds like a small victory for freer speech below:
"The US Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the so-called 'millionaire's amendment' of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, saying it violated free-speech protections. In a 5-to-4 ruling, the high court said Congress cannot use federal election laws to disadvantage candidates who choose to use their own money to run for a seat in Congress. The idea behind the law was to prevent a wealthy candidate from using massive personal spending in a campaign to drown out the voices of other candidates. It was also intended to counter the impression that seats in Congress can be purchased."
Source
The WSJ has more. Having different speech rules for different people certainly does seem obnoxious in principle.
3 comments:
Do you mean seats in congress can't be purchased? How things are changing!
I believe that SCOTUS threw out this law, because it did no good at all!
Candidates can still use their own money, but instead of just giving it to the campaign, they “loan” the money to the campaign. Just like Hillary did twice this year, each time for more than Five Million Dollars. Then if they are Rich, and they lose and no more money comes into their campaigns, they just default of the personal loan that they made. While I haven’t yet read a story that says this, I am understanding that BO paid some or all of Hillary’s loan back, otherwise she would still be running and getting in some donations from Hard Core supporters. Every dollar in, means one more dollar that she could get back.
Mobius
A law that prevents one from using his own money for speech is definitely a violation of freedom of speech.
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