WASHINGTON (AP) – The Conservative majority in the Supreme Court sided on Monday And the repeal of a provision of the Federal Campaign Finance Act that risks “further discrediting” American politics, the judge said.
By a margin of 6-3 votes, the court ruled that restricting Cruz candidates’ personal debt to their campaigns was unconstitutional. The decision comes as the campaign for the 2022 midterm elections intensifies.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote to the majority, “Imposing key political speech without proper justification.”
The Fiden administration defended it as an anti-corruption measure, but Roberts wrote to the government that “it furthers the goal of permissible corruption against the permissible goal of controlling the amount of money in politics.”
Judge Elena Kagan disagreed, writing that for two decades the provision had been validating “curved transactions.” In a disagreement with Kagan himself and two other liberals in court, the majority said, “All the bad deals that Congress thinks it can stop are green lights.” He said the decision “could bring further disrepute to the political system of this country”.
In an email statement, Cruz’s lawyer, Charles Cooper, ruled: “The victory of the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech in the political process.”
The lawsuit was probably funded by the McCain-Fincold Campaign-Finance Act, 2002. The rule states that if a candidate lends his or her campaign money before the election, the campaign candidate will not be able to repay more than $ 250,000 using the money accumulated after election day. The rule states that debts can still be repaid with money accumulated before the election.
Cruz, who has served in the Senate since 2013 and lost the 2016 presidential election, received a $ 260,000 loan for the purpose of challenging legislation the day before the 2018 general election.
In an email statement, Cruz’s spokesman Steve Guest said the senator was “delighted” by the decision, adding that the guest “would help motivate our democratic process and make it easier for challengers to take and defeat industry politicians.”
After Roberts became chief justice in 2005, the decision came as conservatives broke Congress’ limitations on raising and spending money to influence elections. That includes This opened the door to unlimited independent spending in federal elections.
Kagan, in his protest, described a decision now deleting the most recent arrangement. He said a candidate could lend $ 500,000 to his campaign and, after winning, use the donor money to pay it off in full. The grateful politician will respond to donors’ money with “favorable law, perhaps valuable appointments, perhaps lucrative deals.” “The politician is happy; Donors are happy. Losing is only for the public. It inevitably suffers from government corruption.
At another point he said: “No political genius is needed to see the ultimate risk of corruption – risk-making arrangements between donors and office workers who say, ‘I will make you rich, you will make me rich.'”
Roberts, however, noted in his majority opinion that personal contributions to candidates for the federal office, including those made after the candidate has won the election, are $ 2,900 per election.
“Bad predictions of disagreement about the impact of today’s decision obscure the fact that problematic contributions are subject to these requirements,” he wrote. He pointed out that most states “do not limit candidate repayment of post-election contributions.”
Cruise argued that this significantly increased the risk that any candidate would not be able to repay the loan in full, making candidates think twice about lending. The lower court agreed that this provision was unconstitutional.
This case may be directly relevant to individuals who want candidates for federal office to provide more credit for their campaigns. But the administration, which rejected the request for comment following the ruling, said most candidate loans in the past were less than $ 250,000 and therefore the rule challenged by Cruz did not apply.
In the five election cycles before 2020, Senate candidates provided 588 loans for their campaigns, with the government claiming that about 80% of them were under $ 250,000. Candidates for the House of Representatives have issued 3,444 loans, nearly 90 percent under $ 250,000.
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