GOP Seeks to Further Weaken Campaign Finance Laws

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/08/14/gop-seeks-further-weaken-campaign-finance-laws



Will the SEC rule be the next campaign finance domino to fall?

GOP Seeks to Further Weaken Campaign Finance Laws
Deirdre Fulton, staff writer
Thursday, August 14, 2014

Republican lawmakers hoping to rake in more campaign cash from Wall Street are challenging a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule that limits the amount of money financiers can give to governors and state officials.

Last week, the state Republican committees of New York and Tennessee filed a lawsuit aimed at repealing a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule that limits the campaign contributions that can be made by investment advisers on Wall Street to political candidates. The rule is designed to prevent Wall Street from using campaign donations as a form of bribery against state officials who rely on these financial institutions to manage their investments.

Observers predict this could be the Supreme Court's next big campaign finance case. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said this year's McCutcheon decision — which struck down the aggregate limit on individual contributions to federal candidates, national political parties, and political action committees — laid the legal groundwork for the SEC challenge. Indeed, the brief cites both McCutcheon and Citizens United in its argument, calling to mind warnings that dominoes are falling as the Supreme Court moves toward eliminating all limits on campaign spending.

“That suit is ripe and it’s next in the target,” Shaun McCutcheon, the plaintiff in the McCutcheon case, told Politico on Tuesday. “There is a natural sequence of these cases. They have to go through the courts in the right order and at the right rate, and I believe that’s happening.”