Mar 26, 2008 -- Campaign Legal Center Files Supreme Court Amicus Brief in Case Challenging BCRA's Millionaire's Amendment

The Campaign Legal Center, joined by three other organizations (Democracy 21, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, and Public Citizen) filed a friend of the court brief on March 26, 2008 with the Supreme Court in a case challenging the so-called Millionaire's Amendment to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). The Millionaire's Amendment is a provision of BCRA that temporarily raises contribution limits and suspends limits on spending coordinated with political parties for candidates who run against wealthy, self-financing opponents who spend personal funds in excess of a specified monetary threshold.

The legal team that submitted the brief on behalf of the Legal Center and the other groups was led by the law firm of WilmerHale.

Jack Davis, who ran two self-financed campaigns for Congress, challenged the Millionaire's Amendment on the ground that it unconstitutionally chills millionaires like himself from running self-financed campaigns. A three-judge district court in Washington, D.C. rejected the claim.

The Legal Center's friend-of-the-court brief argues, among other things, that the Millionaire's Amendment actually "expands, and does not restrict, the opportunities for speech in the political process" by enabling non-wealthy candidates to raise the funds necessary to compete against wealthy opponents. The Legal Center's brief also makes the point that there have been no limits placed on Davis' right to spend as much money as he wants, and thus his speech is not in any way chilled or infringed by the challenged provision.

The Legal Center also urges rejection of Davis's and his amici 's efforts to have the Court opine on the validity of lower court decisions upholding state public financing laws. The brief distinguishes these state public financing schemes from the Millionaire's Amendment, and notes that such schemes "involve a unique set of governmental interests that must be evaluated on their own terms and in the context of the specific statutory incentives used."