The chief justice wrote that the loans played a special role for the candidates contesting the incumbents.
“As a matter of practice, personal loans will sometimes be the only way for an unknown applicant with limited links to campaign costs before loading,” he wrote. “Both early spending – and therefore early expression – is crucial to a newcomer’s success. A large personal loan can also be a useful tool to signal that a political outsider is confident enough in his campaign to have the skin in the game, attracting the attention of both donors and voters.
Chief Justice Roberts added that the usual $ 2,900 contribution limit continues to apply under the law, meaning 86 donations are allowed before the $ 250,000 limit is reached, undermining the law’s fight against corruption.
He said there was no evidence that the law had given rise to corruption, as applicants whose loans had been repaid were simply recovering. “If the applicant did not have the money to buy a car before giving a loan for his campaign,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “repaying the loan will not change that in any way.”
This argument, Judge Kagan disagreed, “completely misses the point.”
“No matter how much money the candidate had before giving a loan for his campaign,” she writes, “he has less after that: the amount of the loan is the size of the hole in his bank account. So whatever he can buy with, say, $ 250,000 – certainly a car, but that’s out of the question – he can’t buy more. Until, that is, the donors pay him back. “
Judges Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Cavanaugh and Amy Connie Barrett agreed with the majority, and Judges Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined the disagreement.
The case, Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for the Senate, № 21-12, stems from a case that Mr. Cruz filed against the commission before a special district court of three judges in Washington, arguing that the repayment ceiling violates the First Amendment.
Judge Neomi Rao, who usually sits in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, wrote before a unanimous panel that the restriction constitutes an unconstitutional burden on candidates’ rights to freedom of expression.
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