McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission: An Unlikely Blockbuster
Any case that gets to the Supreme Court is important in its own way, but McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission could easily have been one of the least significant cases of the October 2013 term. That it became an important case is all to the benefit of the American people and American democracy, and, oddly enough, mainly the result of the radical First Amendment theories and poor strategic calculations of the dissent.
Shaun McCutcheon, an engineer and successful small business owner from Alabama, wished to contribute $1776—a number obviously chosen for both its substantive impact and its symbolism—to a number of candidates running for Congress whom, he perceived, shared his values and approach to public governance. Federal law limits the size and source of contributions to candidates for federal office. McCutcheon’s desired contributions fell well within the legal limit for giving by an individual to any one candidate in an election–then $2500. However, his desire to contribute $1776 to a substantial number of candidates put him afoul of a second federal limit, one that restricted total campaign contributions by any one individual to all federal candidates in a two-year election cycle to $46,200. 1This meant that McCutcheon could contribute the desired amount to just 26 candidates –or just 13 candidates if he wished to contribute $1776 for both the primary and general elections. Contributing the legal maximum to candidates in both the primary and general elections would limit a donor such as McCutcheon to supporting just nine candidates. McCutcheon did not challenge the $2500 per candidate limit, but argued that the aggregate cap on total giving violated his First Amendment rights by limiting his speech and the number of candidates with whom he could associate, without any compelling government rationale.
