federal election commission because a conservative activist shaun mccutcheon sued the commission arguing those donation limits violated his right to free speech. now, under this new ruling, mr. mccutcheon and other high-dollar donors can donate to as many federal candidates and political committees as they want. the case did not, did not alter the donation limits on the total amount people can give to each candidate. now, instead of being limited to about $123,000 spread across candidates and groups, there is no limit under the new ruling on those total contributions in a campaign cycle. senator chuck schumer who was actually a pretty excellent fund-raiser when he chaired the senate democrats re-election effort said in response to the ruling this decision will take the country back toward the day of the robber barons. justice robert s rules drew a strong dissent from stephen breyer, if the court and citizens united open a door, today s decision may well open a
45%. that shift toward massive inequality was brought on was bought by spending on races. spending by outside groups has grown exponentially from 193 million in 2004 to 1 billion in 2012. we have a weak democracy, overly controlled by the wealthy elite. and mccutchen will lead to them having even more control. the reason why certain issues poll well but can t get passed us because of the overwhelming influence of the tiny elite. expect more and more of this in the future. it s clear republicans will benefit more from mccutchen than dems but dems will benefit as well. the real loser well be the nonwealthy, the overwhelming majority of us. perhaps we dispense with elections all together and just let the elite announce who they ve selected for the rest of us. we must change all this with substantive campaign finance reform that says money is not speech and corporations are not speak and allows for donation limits. but that, i fear, is many
who sued in the case. while the health care litigation draws lots of litigation, the current supreme court docket includes several case that is could prove far more influential, testing limits on the government s power. before the senate reformed the filibuster to curb gop obstruction, president obama rolled republicans by using his recess appointment power to install some blocked labor nominees. so the court will decide if the president overstepped his authority. a case that could shift the balance of power between the white house and an increasingly do-nothing congress. and there s another key case about political rules that s already drawn warnings from the president. the latest case would oh go even further than citizens united. essentially, it would say anything goes. there are no rules in terms of how to finance campaigns. what it means is, ordinary americans are shut out of the process. many liberals argue, the court could hand down a sequel to citizens united in that case,
landscape, i think we can see the decisions the court handed down thus far on donation limits have really changed the field of play. i would ask pete this, one of the core principles of our campaign finance laws that came out after watergate was to limit any one individual s influence. we don t want a system when millionaires and billionaires could have outsized influence more than anybody else even though there are free speech issues here. i m wondering if that core issue got discussed much from either side today as they went through some of these technical arguments. absolutely. members of the court s liberal wing are very concerned about that, justice briar and justice ginsburg saying you have a problem here if justice ginsburg if the super affluent end up influencing campaigns and other people do not have a voice. other people will say what s the point of participating in politics anymore if my voice doesn t count. but i think for the majority of
united. that provided a blueprint of how to raise money outside the political party structure. so big money was back, just not inside the two-party system, only on the outside. and today we have yet another supreme court case with the potential of removing another barrier to campaign donations. the case is called mccutchen versus the ftc and it s a direct challenge to donation limits put in place nearly 40 years ago. let me explain the limits they re talking about. federal law limits the total amount you can contribute in a two-year election cycle. so no one individual can contribute more than $123,200 total to all candidates running for federal office 2013 and 2014. there s also a base limit of course in place which says an individual can t donate more than $2,600 directly to any one federal candidate during their campaign cycle primary in general. an important distinction.