WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court yesterday removed the overall limit on contributions a donor can make to political candidates, a move that could open the floodgates to campaign funding by rich individuals.
The move was immediately hailed by Republicans, who are gearing up to challenge President Barack Obama’s Democratic supporters for control of the Senate in October mid-term elections.
The top court, in a five to four ruling read by Chief Justice John Roberts, did retain limits on the amount an individual donor can give to a single candidate but removed an overall cap.
The Obama administration had argued that aggregate limits help fight corruption by preventing wealthy donors from circumventing the cap on individual contributions by funding rafts of candidates. But the Supreme Court bench ruled by five justices to four that the overall ceiling did little to address graft and bribery “while seriously restricting participation in the democratic process.
“The aggregate limits are therefore invalid under the First Amendment,” the court’s ruling said. The decision annuls current rules that cap an individual’s overall campaign donations at no more than $123,200 over two years.
And the ruling comes three years after the court lifted a ceiling on campaign giving by corporations and unions, in the controversial “Citizens United V. FEC,” the Federal Election Commission.
“If the Court in Citizens United opened a door, today’s decision may well open a floodgate,” warned liberal justice Stephen Breyer in a dissenting opinion released along with the judgement. President Barack Obama, who had vehemently attacked the Citizens United decision in his State of the Union Speech, did not immediately comment. AFP
