A federal appeals court ruled Monday that one of Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws prohibiting individuals from contributing more than $10,000 a year to issue-based political action committees is unconstitutional.
Wisconsin Right to Life filed a complaint before 2010’s gubernatorial elections, noting the contribution limit violated First Amendment rights protected under the Citizens United federal court ruling that allows groups to donate unlimited amounts to political campaigns.
According to the ruling, the limit is only unconstitutional to the extent that it limits PACs like Wisconsin Right to Life “that only engage in independent spending for political speech,” or in other words, do not contribute money to political candidates’ campaigns.
Wisconsin Right to Life Executive Director Barbara Lyons said the “victory” adds to the pro-life group’s reputation as a “significant contributor to state and national dialogue on speech.”
But Mike McCabe, executive director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign said the decision will give political action committees too much power in deciding elections.
“You’ve got a special interest monologue in many elections where the candidates … and the voters don’t really matter much,” McCabe said. “It’s all about the interest groups duking it out and this ruling just aggravates that.”
McCabe said the decision would still influence elections because of independent political action committees’ issue ads and other lobbying efforts, even though they cannot outright say which candidate they support.
But Lyons said critics of the decision do not understand the First Amendment and the protections the Citizens United decision guarantees.
“There have been cases all across the country in which people that have these interpretations of the constitution are just plain wrong,” Lyons said.
McCabe said they did not believe the decision will be reconsidered because of its accordance with the federal Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
“The Supreme Court as it stands is currently hostile to these kinds of [state] laws” McCabe said. “In the meantime, there is going to be a great deal of damage done to our democracy.”
