McConnell v. Federal Election Commission
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| McConnell v. Federal Election Commission | ||||||
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| Argued September 8, 2003 Decided December 10, 2003 |
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| Holding | ||||||
| Money is property, not speech. Still, not all political speech is protected by the First Amendment from government infringement. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
| Chief Justice: William Rehnquist Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer |
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority by: Stevens, O'Connor Joined by: Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer Majority by: Rehnquist Joined by: O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter Majority by: Breyer Joined by: Souter, Ginsburg, Stevens, O'Connor Concurrence by: Scalia Concurrence by: Thomas Concurrence by: Kennedy Joined by: Rehnquist, Scalia Dissent by: Rehnquist Joined by: Scalia, Kennedy Dissent by: Stevens Joined by: Breyer, Ginsburg |
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| Laws applied | ||||||
| First Amendment to the United States Constitution|U.S. Const. amend. I; 116 Stat. 81 | ||||||
| Overruled by | ||||||
| Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007) | ||||||
McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, 540 U.S. 93 (2003)[1], is a case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of most of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, often referred to as the McCain–Feingold Act.
The case takes its name from Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, and the Federal Election Commission, the federal agency that oversees U.S. campaign finance laws.
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[edit] History
The case was brought by groups such as the California State Democratic Party and the National Rifle Association, and individuals including U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, then the Senate Majority Whip, who argued that the legislation was an unconstitutional infringement on their First Amendment rights. Senator McConnell had been a longterm opponent of BCRA in the Senate due to his issues with its constitutional merits, and had led several Senate filibusters to block its passage.
In June 2003, the D.C. Court of Appeals issued a ruling on whether the law was constitutional. That ruling never took effect, as the case was immediately appealed to the Supreme Court.
[edit] Oral arguments
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a special session on September 8, 2003. On Wednesday, December 10, 2003, it issued a complicated decision [1], totaling 300 pages in length, that, with a 5-4 majority, upheld the key provisions of McCain-Feingold including (1) the "electioneering communication" provisions (which required disclosure of and prohibited the use of corporate and union treasury funds to pay for or broadcast cable and satellite ads clearly identifying a federal candidate targeted to the candidate's electorate within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election); and (2) the "soft money" ban (which prohibited federal parties, candidates, and officeholders from raising or spending funds not in compliance with contribution restrictions, and prohibited state parties from using such "soft money" in connection with federal elections).
[edit] Opinions
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Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (February 2008) |
Justices Breyer, Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg established the majority for two parts of the Court's opinion:
- With respect to Titles I and II of the BCRA, Justices Stevens, O'Connor wrote the opinion of the Court.
- With respect to Title V of the BCRA, Justice Breyer wrote the Court's opinion.
Two dissenting opinions were included in the decision:
- Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Ginsburg, and Breyer, dissented on one section of the part of the Court's opinion written by the Chief Justice.
- The Chief Justice, joined by Justice Kennedy and Scalia, issued a 15-page dissent against the Court's opinion with respect to Titles I and V of the BCRA.
Three other justices wrote separate opinions on the decision:
- Justice Kennedy, joined by the Chief Justice, issued a 68-page dissenting opinion and appendix, noting that BCRA forces "speakers to abandon their own preference for speaking through parties and organizations."
- Justice Thomas issued a separate 25-page dissenting opinion noting that the Court was upholding the "most significant abridgment of the freedoms of speech and association since the Civil War."
- Justice Scalia issued a separate 19-page dissenting opinion, a "few words of [his] own," because of the "extraordinary importance" of the cases.
[edit] Overturned Portions
On July 5, 2007, in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that the organizations engaged in genuine discussion of issues were entitled to a broad, "as applied" exemption from the electioneering communications provisions of BCRA (those portions of BCRA that limited advertising that named a particular candidate by name within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election, if the ad was paid for by a corporation or union). Many observers argue that the exemption crafted by the Court effectively nullifies those provisions of the Act and overrules that portion of McConnell, but the full impact of Wisconsin Right to Life remains to be seen.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] Further reading
- Levy, Robert A.; Mellor, William H. (2008). "Campaign Finance Reform and Free Speech", The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom. New York: Sentinel, 89–106. ISBN 9781595230508.
