A 5-4 split decision handed down Wednesday morning by the Supreme Court of the United States has invalidated a long-standing law that limited the overall amount of money US citizens can contribute to political campaigns each election cycle.
The landmark ruling in the case of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission will not directly impact a law that currently keeps Americans from legally being able to contribute more than $2,600 apiece to individual candidates running for federal office each two-year period. It does, however, erase a so-called “aggregate cap” of $123,200 that up until now prevented people from contributing a combined total of more than $48,600 to the candidates of their choice and $74,000 on parties and Political Action Committees, or PACS, each cycle.
Plaintiff Shaun McCutcheon, a conservative electrical engineer from Alabama, insisted that the limits in place hindered his freedom of speech because it prohibited his ability to donate freely to the politicians he favored. During the last cycle, McCutcheon contributed the symbolically significant amount of $1,776 apiece to a total of 15 right-leaning candidates running for Congress, but FEC restrictions prohibited him from spending much more because signing checks to other candidates would have quickly put him over the aggregate cap.
RT
Oh, hell, I think they already do.Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) denounced the ruling saying it would fundamentally undermine American democracy. “The Supreme Court is paving the way toward an oligarchic form of society in which a handful of billionaires like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson will control our political process,” he said in a statement.
Bill Moyers
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