Federal Election Comm'n v. Ted Cruz
596 U. S. ____ (2022) (2022)
Rule of Law:
A federal law limiting the amount of post-election contributions that can be used to repay a candidate's personal campaign loans to $250,000 unconstitutionally burdens core political speech under the First Amendment without a sufficient anti-corruption justification.
Facts:
- During his 2018 Senate reelection campaign, Ted Cruz loaned his campaign committee, Ted Cruz for Senate, a total of $260,000.
- The loan was made one day before the election.
- After the election, the Committee began to repay Cruz's loans but did so after a 20-day regulatory deadline for repaying amounts over $250,000 had passed.
- Consequently, the Committee repaid Cruz only $250,000 of the loan, as permitted by the law.
- This left $10,000 of Cruz's personal loan to the campaign unpaid.
- Cruz and his Committee stipulated that their actions were taken with the sole and exclusive motivation of establishing the factual basis for a legal challenge to the repayment limitation.
Procedural Posture:
- Ted Cruz and the Ted Cruz for Senate Committee filed a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
- The complaint alleged that Section 304 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act violates the First Amendment.
- Pursuant to BCRA's jurisdictional provisions, a three-judge panel of the District Court was convened to hear the case.
- The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of Cruz and his Committee on their constitutional claim.
- The District Court ruled that the loan-repayment limitation burdened political speech without a sufficient government justification.
- The FEC, representing the government, filed a direct appeal of the District Court's decision to the Supreme Court of the United States.
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Issue:
Does Section 304 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which limits the post-election repayment of a candidate's personal campaign loans to $250,000, violate the First Amendment's protection of political speech?
Opinions:
Majority - Roberts, C. J.
Yes. Section 304 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act violates the First Amendment. The loan-repayment limitation burdens core political speech by deterring candidates from loaning money to their campaigns, thereby restricting the amount of political speech. By increasing the risk that personal loans exceeding $250,000 will not be repaid, the law inhibits a critical source of campaign funding, especially for challengers and new candidates. The government's asserted interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption or its appearance is not sufficiently justified. The law is a redundant 'prophylaxis-upon-prophylaxis,' as existing contribution limits and disclosure requirements already address corruption risks. The government failed to provide record evidence of quid pro quo corruption specific to this context, relying instead on mere conjecture and concerns about general influence, which are not permissible grounds for restricting speech. The government's analogy of loan repayments to 'gifts' is unpersuasive because repaying a debt simply restores a candidate to their prior financial position, rather than enriching them.
Dissenting - Kagan, J.
No. Section 304 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act does not violate the First Amendment. The law imposes only a marginal restriction on speech because it regulates the use of contributions, not a candidate's ability to spend their own money on their campaign. The provision is a necessary and constitutional measure to combat a heightened risk of quid pro quo corruption and its appearance. Post-election contributions used to repay a candidate's personal loan are uniquely dangerous because they personally enrich an elected official at a time when they are in a position to grant official favors to the donor. The majority wrongly dismisses the significant financial benefit a candidate receives when a personal loan is repaid, and it improperly discounts Congress's experience-based judgment that such transactions pose a special threat to the integrity of the political process.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the Supreme Court's increasingly narrow view of permissible campaign finance regulation, limiting it almost exclusively to preventing direct quid pro quo corruption. It raises the evidentiary bar for the government to justify such regulations, requiring concrete proof of corruption rather than plausible concerns about its appearance or the existence of undue influence. The ruling effectively makes it easier for wealthy candidates to self-fund their campaigns through large personal loans, knowing they can be fully repaid by donors after winning an election. This may alter campaign finance dynamics by increasing the strategic importance of post-election fundraising and the potential influence of donors who contribute to retiring a candidate's personal debt.
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