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That part of the law is “the most vulnerable,” Persily said, and has been challenged on First Amendment grounds.Įxpectations that the Supreme Court will uphold the soft-money ban rose when it ruled June 16 that the right to free speech did not outweigh that of Congress to regulate corporate influence on legislators. But the court is more likely to strike down the ban on using soft money to pay for issue ads which purport to be about election topics but are effectively a means of supporting or attacking a particular candidate. And it said the so-called magic words such as “vote for” or “vote against” are not constitutionally required for an ad to be considered part of federal election speech.ĭespite the unclear conclusions of the district court, the general expectation is that the Supreme Court will uphold the soft-money ban on federal candidates or office holders because the principle has been in effect since the passage of the BCRA’s predecessor, the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1971, said Nathaniel Persily, symposium chairman and a professor at Penn Law School. The court ruled that issue advertising by non-party groups is indistinguishable from campaign spending and may be regulated by Congress. But the court ruled as unconstitutional the ban on national and state parties using the money for party-building activities. It also endorsed the prohibition on parties spending soft money on “issue” advertisements in which an election issue such as gun control is associated with a candidate without explicitly endorsing or attacking that candidate’s election effort. The three-judge district court upheld the Act’s ban on soft money raised or spent by federal candidates or office holders. Individual donations, for example, are limited to $2,000 to each candidate or candidate committee per election. By contrast, “hard money,” which is used for direct contributions to candidates, is regulated by the Federal Election Commission.
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Soft money consists of donations – mostly from corporations – that are not limited by statute and are used for so-called party-building activities such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns. The event, which featured speakers from academia and groups such as the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute, examined and critiqued the court’s conclusions and looked at their political implications.Īt the heart of the act, which was signed into law in March 2002, is the ban on “soft money” being raised or spent by political parties and candidates. The district court’s report on the Act – better known as McCain-Feingold for its principal Congressional sponsors – was the subject of a symposium held by the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the National Constitution Center on May 15. In a monumental 1,638-page report, the court upheld some parts of the act and struck down others but reached no unified decision and left campaigners on both sides little wiser as to which parts of the law would be allowed to stand. The court is expected to begin its examination in the fall, following a decision by a federal district court to suspend its own conclusions on the act after a six-month review that was published May 2. Supreme Court’s decision to consider the constitutionality of the controversial Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) raises the prospect that the act’s ban on corporate and union political donations will be made permanent, and the business community will be forced to find alternative ways of advancing its agenda on Capitol Hill.