Yesterday, the judge who ruled corporations may contribute directly to federal candidates reaffirmed his decision, but held it only applies in the criminal case before him. Federal District Judge James C. Cacheris continues to find the “logic remains inescapable” that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United dictates corporations have the same contribution rights as human beings.

The judge writes: “Again, for better or worse, Citizens United held that the First Amendment treats corporations and individuals equally for the purposes of political speech. This leaves no logical room for an individual to be able to donate $2,500 to a campaign while a corporation … cannot donate a cent.” However, his decision states the “flat ban on direct corporate contributions to political campaigns is unconstitutional as applied to this case, as opposed to being unconstitutional as applied to all corporate donations.”

After reviewing the possible impact of his decision in US v Danielczyk, and the unaddressed political contribution issues since the Citizens United decision, the judge characterizes his ruling by concluding it “adds a small drop to what is already a very large bucket.”

This blog post updates a previous article, “Corporate Contribution Ban Found Unconstitutional” by George Ticoras on May 27.