[EL] McCutcheon

Wed Apr 2 14:15:21 PDT 2014

Dear Tyler,

For some comparison, you can look at spending at the aggregate limit level from the states in the National Institute on Money in State Politics' report, "Minimum Give the Maximum" here http://www.followthemoney.org/press/ReportView.phtml?r=500

Ciara
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy
--------------------------------------------------
View my research on my SSRN Author page:
http://ssrn.com/author=584767
--------------------------------------------------
________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Paul Blumenthal [paulblumenthal at huffingtonpost.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2014 5:06 PM
To: Tyler Culberson
Cc: Election Law
Subject: Re: [EL] McCutcheon

I found 49 donors to have broken the aggregate limits in the 2012 cycle: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/03/campaign-contribution-limits_n_3132474.html

The FEC doesn't do this kind of digging themselves. They don't ascribe unique identifiers, which makes it very hard to trace. I believe Adam Bonica has a paper on the FEC and unique identifiers that related to aggregate limits. That is now something the FEC doesn't have to worry about not dealing with.

On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 5:00 PM, Tyler Culberson <tylerculberson at gmail.com<mailto:tylerculberson at gmail.com>> wrote:
"I'm also curious how many donors have run up against the aggregate limit in the last decade."

I might check with Paul Blumenthal who had written an article in Huffington Post about donors crossing the biennial limit threshold last May in Huffington Post. I'd also note that this law had not been meaningfully enforced since 1990, when the FEC actually fined a small number of donors who exceeded the biennial limits.

On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 4:46 PM, Doug Spencer <dougspencer at gmail.com<mailto:dougspencer at gmail.com>> wrote:
I have two questions for the list about today's "Battle of Competing Hypotheticals" also known as the McCutcheon opinion:

(1) Despite the "civility<http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/a-civil-day-on-the-bench-for-opinions-on-the-impolite-world-of-campaign-finance/>" in today's announcement, Roberts and Breyer are clearly frustrated with each other. Breyer, channeling his inner Oscar Wilde, even went so far to say that it's nearly impossible to read the majority opinion without laughing. But I don't read the majority and dissent as mutually exclusive, at least on the point of circumvention. Breyer describes what is possible and Roberts argues what is plausible. Can somebody offer some context on this point? Roberts argues that circumvention is unlikely because of the various anti-earmarking provisions that have been added over the years. But certainly these provisions have been added because of actual (or feared) circumvention. For those with a working knowledge of contribution bundling and earmarking, is it true as Roberts argues that the 100 PAC scenario (or other of Breyer's hypos) is "highly implausible"? I'm also curious how many donors have run up against the aggregate limit in the last decade. This fact is missing from the opinion and party briefs (I didn't read the amicus briefs), but it seems like a relevant piece of information, even if it could cut both ways.

(2) In footnote 7, the majority notes that just 8 of the 38 states with base limits also have an aggregate limit. What is the status of these state laws? Would state-specific evidence of circumvention be enough to preserve them? The Citizens United experience suggests that it wouldn't<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/supreme-courts-montana-decision-strengthens-citizens-united/2012/06/25/gJQA8Vln1V_blog.html>. But the holding in McCutcheon seems to be more fact-oriented than in Citizens United so perhaps individual state histories and campaign finance regimes will make a difference.

Thanks for any thoughts.
Doug

-----
Douglas M. Spencer
Associate Professor of Law and Public Policy
University of Connecticut
65 Elizabeth Street
Hartford, CT 06105
(860) 570-5437<tel:%28860%29%20570-5437>
http://www.dougspencer.org<http://www.dougspencer.org/>

_______________________________________________
Law-election mailing list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

_______________________________________________
Law-election mailing list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

--
Paul Blumenthal
Huffington Post
o: (202) 624-9384
c: (202) 714-8545
Twitter: PaulBlu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20140402/be34c3a3/attachment.html>