Supreme Court Rules All Not Need be Fair in Politics

Dismissing the fact that politics is not even mentioned in the Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26, ruled it unconstitutional for Congress to pass laws intended to ensure fairness in campaign financing. Saying it violated the freedom of speech guarantee of the First Amendment, the Court's 5-4 ruling in the case of Davis v. Federal Election Commission, struck down the "millionaire's amendment," to federal campaign financing laws intended to prevent wealthy House of Representative candidates from having an unfair advantage in elections.

Under the "millionaire's amendment," whenever a congressional candidate used $350,000 or more of his or her own money to finance their campaign, all of their opponents were allowed to triple the $2,300 per election individual campaign contribution limit. Because incumbent politicians seldom finance their own campaigns, the amendment served to protect incumbents from being ousted from office by wealthy, self-financed opponents.

This Relates to the Constitution, How?
While Congress has tried for years to legislate away the effects of big money and individual wealth on the political system, the Supreme Court has now made it as clear as a 5-4 decision can make it, that Congress must limit future political "fairness" laws to those clearly intended to prevent corruption. Even if a candidates wealth creates an unfair advantage, said the Court, Congress cannot pass laws that would basically subsidize the campaigns of their opponents.

Such laws, said the Court, would violate the wealthy candidate's First Amendment freedom of speech rights, thus explaining how the Court justified agreeing to even hear the case. According to the Court, personal access to lots of money gives the wealthy candidate a "natural advantage" over the less well-to-do candidate, an advantage which Congress lacks the constitutional right to take away. To legislatively reduce the rich candidates "natural advantage," reasoned the Court would effectively limit the candidate's freedom of political speech.

Writing in the Court's majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito stated, "We [the Supreme Court] have never upheld the constitutionality of a law that imposes different contribution limits for candidates who are competing against each other."

Noting that the "millionaire's amendment" helped prevent the appearance that "congressional seats are for sale to the highest bidder," Justice John Paul Stevens stated in the dissenting opinion that since the amendment "does not impose any burden whatsoever on the self-funding candidate's freedom to speak, it does not violate the First Amendment."