Plutocratic Contributions (McCutcheon v. FEC etc.)

In McCutcheon on 2 April 2014, the Supreme Court narrowly (5-4) decided to remove a limit on contributions an individual can make over a two-year period to national party and federal candidate committees. It vastly increases the already huge amount of money available to influence congresspersons and create dark (untraceable) money to support Plutocratic causes.

Justice Thomas concurred in the judgment but wished to go further and abolish all campaign contribution limits: “limiting the amount of money a person may give to a candidate does impose a direct restraint on his political communication.” He rejected the rationale of Buckley v. Valeo that “[a] contribution serves as a general expression of support for the candidate and his views, but does not communicate the underlying basis for the support” since “this Court has never required a speaker to explain the reasons for his position in order to obtain full First Amendment protection.” (Courtesy © Wikipedia)

Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan dissented, arguing that the decision “creates a loophole that will allow a single individual to contribute millions of dollars to a political party or to a candidate’s campaign. Taken together with Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U. S. 310 (2010), today’s decision eviscerates our Nation’s campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve.” (Courtesy © Wikipedia)

If the People want to reduce the money available to corrupt our Congress, the McCutcheon decision would be a likely target. The Oligarchy and Congress are unlikely to turn their backs on such largess. The only option left will be for the People to use a Direct Constitutional Initiative to reverse the McCutcheon .