The group behind last fall’s ballot initiative placing new limits on Super PAC contributions has appealed a federal judge’s ruling that voided the law early last month.
In mid-July, U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Wolf permanently enjoined the State of Maine from enforcing the law limiting Super PAC contributions as approved by voters by referendum last November.
According to Judge Wolf, the Supreme Court’s fifteen-year-old ruling in Citizens United “forecloses limits on contribution to independent expenditure groups.”
She also found that the law’s disclosure requirements were in violation of the First Amendment because they would encompass all Super PAC donors, regardless of how much any one person contributed.
This ruling was appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston this week.
The extension of these legal battle comes as no surprise, however, given that those who brought the proposal forward indicated up front that they expected it to be challenged and hoped to see the case brought before the United States Supreme Court.
[RELATED: Federal Judge Blocks Maine’s New Limits on Super PAC Contributions Citing First Amendment Violations]
Under Maine state law, “independent expenditures” are defined as any communication expense — such as for advertisements or phone banks — that clearly advocates for or against a particular candidate but is “not made in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate, a candidate’s authorized political committee or an agent of either.”
In other words, independent expenditures encompass any campaign expenses made without collaborating with candidates.
While traditional PACs can make contributions to political candidates in addition to making independent expenditures, they are already limited to receiving no more than $5,000 a year from any single donor.
Although Super PACs cannot donate directly to candidates, they have been eligible to receive unlimited contributions from their donors.
Under the law being challenged in this suit, however, contributions made by both individuals and businesses to PACs “for the purpose of making independent expenditures” would have been limited to a total of $5,000 per calendar year as well.
Super PACs first came about in 2010 in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC in which the Justices decided that placing limitations on “independent political spending” by both individuals and corporations violated the First Amendment, arguing that these expenditures did not present a sufficient enough threat of corruption warrant government intervention.
With the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ subsequent decision in the case of SpeechNow v. FEC, it was determined that placing any limitations on donations to PACs making only independent expenditures was unconstitutional under the First Amendment, thus paving the way for the creation of Super PACs.
Labeled as Question 1 on the November ballot last year, this law limiting contributions to $5,000 originated as a citizens initiative spearheaded by Harvard Law Professor and political activist Lawrence Lessig.
According to campaign finance data published by the Maine Ethics Commission, the ballot question committee (BQC) responsible for supporting the petition — Maine Citizens to End Super PACs — raised nearly $500,000, the vast majority of which came from out of state.
At the ballot box in November, Mainers overwhelmingly voted in favor of Question 1, garnering about 74 percent support, the strongest result of the five statewide ballot questions.
[RELATED: Judge Hears Arguments in Case Alleging New Limits on Super PAC Contributions Violate Mainers’ Rights]
“We have not had a chance to get this issue up to the court,” Lessig said on Wednesday, according to Maine Public.
“It’s just astonishing that for 15 years, this reality of super PACs has been part of American politics without the Supreme Court ever having the chance to address the question. And so we are (hoping) to give them that chance as quickly as possible,” he said.
Challenging this law are the Dinner Table — a Maine PAC focused on “faith, family, and freedom” and dedicated to supporting “conservative candidates” — and its founder, Alex Titcomb.
Part of this lawsuit as well is the For Our Future PAC, also founded by Titcomb and described in the filing as making significant contributions to the Dinner Table and other PACs for the purpose of independent expenditures.
In the opening paragraphs of their complaint, the plaintiffs argued that the $5,000 limit “suppresses this classic method of speech and association in a manner that has been unanimously rejected by every circuit court to decide the issue.”
In the following twenty pages, the Plaintiffs contended that the law is unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, alleging that it violates the protected rights of free speech and equal protection.
