On May 16, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a part of federal campaign finance law regulating the repayment of loans from candidates to their own campaigns.

Generally, Section 304 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 barred campaigns from using more than $250,000 of political contributions raised after the election day to repay a candidate’s personal loans to their campaign committee.

In striking down the law, the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Roberts and joined by five other Justices, concludes the law “increases the risk that candidate loans over $250,000 will not be repaid in full, inhibiting candidates from making such loans in the first place.”

The majority in FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate, et al. concluded the law burdens core political speech without proper justification. The majority found the Federal Election Commission failed to demonstrate that the loan-repayment limit serves an interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption.

The dissenting opinion, written by Justice Kagan and joined by Justice Breyer and Justice Sotomayor, argued the burden of the law is minimal and the reasoning behind the enactment of the law remains valid: money given after an election to a candidate’s campaign committee, which will go directly to the candidate as repayment for their loan to the campaign committee, creates a heightened risk of corruption.

Senator Ted Cruz, the plaintiff in the case, loaned his campaign committee $260,000 one day before he was reelected. While the amount was $10,000 over the limit, the campaign committee had a 20-day grace period in which Cruz could have been fully repaid. It has been reported Cruz allowed the repayment to lapse beyond that date in order to establish a legal basis for bringing a challenge to the law.

On February 25, President Joe Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Serve as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jackson will replace U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who is retiring from the bench upon confirmation of his replacement. Breyer, at 83, is currently the oldest member of the Court, serving since 1994 when he was appointed by President Bill Clinton.

Jackson, who was once a clerk for Justice Breyer, is currently on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She has previously served as a federal district court judge, a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an attorney in private practice, and as a federal public defender.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer is retiring from the bench, according to the New York Times.

The announcement is expected to formally be announced tomorrow, January 27, by President Joe Biden.

Breyer, at 83, is currently the oldest member of the Court, serving since 1994 when he was appointed by President Bill Clinton.

On April 1, the United States Supreme Court unanimously decided automatic text messages sent to telephone numbers culled from a database of a sender, in this case from Facebook, and not from a system having the capacity either to store or to produce a telephone number using a random or sequential number generator, is not prohibited under The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA).

While this decision does not apply to robocalls, it does seem to permit those in political campaigns to allow voice calls and text messages, taken from their databases, to be automatically made from technology not using a random or sequential number generator without fear of violating the TCPA.

In Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, Noah Duguid, who had never created a Facebook account, continually received text messages from Facebook. Duguid alleged that Facebook violated the TCPA by maintaining a database storing phone numbers and sending automated text messages from that database. In a 9-0 decision, the court agreed with Facebook’s technical argument that the TCPA does not apply because the technology it used to text Duguid did not use a “random or sequential number generator.”

The TCPA was enacted to prevent the abuse of telemarketing made with an “automatic telephone dialing system” and other troublesome tactics.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a case challenging a Montana disclosure law.

Specifically, the law requires disclosure of spending for political ads within 60 days of an election.

In August 2019, the 9th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Montana’s law requiring nonprofit groups running ads mentioning candidates, political parties or ballot issues in the 60 day window before an election to report any spending of $250 or more and disclose who funded their efforts.

This law is part of the state’s Disclosure Act, while the case was filed by the National Association of Gun Rights in 2016.

In their lawsuit, the group stated they were planning on sending mailers in Montana.

However, they would not report their donors or spending because it violated their constitutional rights of free speech.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to Seattle’s first-in-the-nation democracy voucher program for public financing of political campaigns.

The court denied the challenge brought by two local property owners arguing the program violated the First Amendment by forcing them, through their tax dollars, to support candidates they don’t like.

In 2015, Seattle voters decided to tax themselves $3 million a year in order to receive four $25 vouchers they can donate to participating candidates in city elections.

The state Supreme Court unanimously upheld the voucher program last year.

On January 13, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order denying review of an appeal concerning the legality of a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pay-to-play rule, allowing that rule to stand.

Previously, on June 18, 2020, a federal appellate court had affirmed a lower court’s finding that the pay-to-play rule was legal.

In New York Republican State Committee v. SEC, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found the SEC’s Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Rule 2030 constitutional.

The rule prohibits a placement agent from accepting compensation for soliciting government business from certain candidates and elected officials within two years of having contributed to such an official’s electoral campaign or to the transition or inaugural expenses of a successful candidate.

The New York Republican State Committee and the Tennessee Republican Party had argued the SEC did not have authority to enact the rule, the order adopting the rule was arbitrary and capricious because there was insufficient evidence it was needed, and the rule violated the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court is raising doubts about Alaska’s $500-a-year limit on contributions to political candidates.

The justices are ordering a lower court to take a new look at the issue.

The court says in an unsigned opinion on Monday that federal judges who rejected a challenge to the contribution cap did not take into account a 2006 high court ruling.

The 2006 ruling invalidated low-dollar limits on political contributions in Vermont.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a separate opinion expressing that Alaska’s reliance on the energy industry may make the state unusually vulnerable to political corruption and justify the low limits.

On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States announced it would decline to hear a challenge to a Massachusetts law.

The law in question bans corporate contributions to campaigns, parties and candidate-focused political action committees.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court unanimously rejected the challenge, brought by 1A Auto Inc. and 126 Self Storage Inc., in September.

The suit claimed disparate treatment by banning for-profit corporate contributions while allowing significant contributions by unions and nonprofits.

After the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United, state law was updated to allow corporate spending for independent expenditures but not political contributions.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey applauded Monday’s decision not to hear the case for the integrity of state elections.

Opponents of the law are hopeful the Supreme Court will take up the issue in another case.

This week, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear a case challenging the state’s Disclose Act, leaving in place a lower court ruling of constitutionality.

The Disclose Act requires more heightened reporting by groups seeking to influence elections, commonly referred to as dark-money groups.

The campaign disclosure act, challenged by Montanans for Community Development on first amendment grounds, has been an important policy for Gov. Steve Bullock and his administration.

This comes at a time when the Montana House of Representatives is considering House Resolution 2, a bipartisan resolution urging Congress to propose a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.

On September 15th, Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Jr. issued an order staying a lower federal district court’s order invalidating a Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign finance disclosure regulation. Robert’s stay was decided on Saturday after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied an emergency motion for the stay made earlier the same day.

On August 3, a federal district court had ruled a campaign finance disclosure regulation, followed for decades by the FEC, failed to uphold disclosure requirements required by a federal statute. Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the United States District Court for The District of Columbia issued an order, in CREW v. FEC, vacating 11 C.F.R. §109.10(e)(1)(vi), but stayed the vacatur for 45 days to give time for the FEC to issue interim regulations comporting with the statutory disclosure requirements of 52 U.S.C. §30104(c). The court also has allowed the FEC 30 days to change an earlier FEC dismissal to conform with the court’s ruling.

The case originated because of independent expenditures made in a 2012 Ohio senate race by the non-political social-welfare nonprofit Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (Crossroads GPS), an affiliate of the American Crossroads Super PAC. Crossroads GPS did not report donors when reporting its independent expenditures, while it acknowledged receiving contributions over $200, arguing the donors did not donate funds directly tied to any specific reported expenditure, as the FEC interpreted 11 C.F.R. §109.10(e)(1)(vi) to require. Non-political committees making independent expenditures over $250 in a calendar year must comply with disclosure obligations closely analogous to those imposed on political committees.

The vacated regulation required the identification of each person who made a contribution in excess of $200 to the person filing a disclosure report, including for non-political 501(c)(4) non-profit entities making independent expenditures, if the contribution was made for the purpose of furthering the reported independent expenditure. The district court found the regulation, as construed and applied by the FEC, did not require the disclosure of donors, absent the donor’s express agreement that the funds be used for the specific expenditures reported to the FEC, even though the donor may otherwise support and in fact contribute for the purpose of funding those expenditures.

The district court found the regulation impermissibly narrows the mandated disclosure in 52 U.S.C. §30104(c)(2)(C), which requires the identification of such donors contributing for the purpose of furthering the non-political committee’s own express advocacy for or against the election of a federal candidate, even when the donor has not expressly directed that the funds be used in the precise manner reported.

On June 7, Gov. Roy Cooper called a 14-day special session for North Carolina lawmakers to redraw district voting maps.

The session begins June 8 and will run concurrently with the regular session.

The special concurrent session comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 28 districts unconstitutional due to racial gerrymandering.

On June 5, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that 28 state House and Senate Districts in North Carolina were racially gerrymandered, while also vacating the lower court’s order for a special election in 2017 for one-year terms to address the issue.

The court ruled that the special election remedy was not properly analyzed by the lower court. The matter has been returned to the lower court, which could call another special election or order new districts in time for the regular cycle of elections in 2018.

The Supreme Court’s decision comes just two weeks after the court found two of the state’s U.S. Congressional districts to also be racially gerrymandered.

On May 22, the United States Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s finding of summary judgement upholding the constitutionality of the Federal Election Campaign Act’s regulation of the use of so-called soft money.

In Republican Party of Louisiana v. FEC, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia rejected a challenge to federal campaign finance provisions requiring state and local political parties to abide by federal regulations concerning certain political activities such as get-out-the-vote and voter registration drives and the resulting reporting requirements.

In response to an appeal from the plaintiffs, the Supreme Court affirmed the District Court’s decision.