U.S. Supreme Court – Page 17 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Supreme Court Roundup Part One: McCutcheon v. FEC

Post author:Edward A. Fallone
Post published:October 31, 2014
Post category:Constitutional Interpretation Constitutional Law Election Law First Amendment Public Speakers at Marquette U.S. Supreme Court

On October 30, I participated in a presentation entitled “Supreme Court Roundup” with Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute. The event was sponsored by the Law School chapters of the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society. We discussed three significant cases from the 2013-2014 Supreme Court term: McCutcheon v. FEC, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Harris v. Quinn. It was a spirited discussion, in which Mr. Shapiro and I presented opposing views, but I want to thank Mr. Shapiro for taking the time to visit the Law School and for sharing his perspective with the students.

This is the first of three blog posts on the presentation. What follows are my prepared remarks on McCutcheon v. FEC. Readers interested in Mr. Shapiro’s position on the case can refer to the amicus brief that he filed on behalf of the Cato Institute.

In McCutcheon v. FEC, the Supreme Court considered whether campaign finance laws imposing annual aggregate contribution limits violate the First Amendment of the Constitution. A plurality of the Court answered “yes,” without reaching the issue of whether limits on contributions to individual candidates also violated the Constitution. Justice Thomas concurred with the plurality opinion, but would have gone further and overruled the 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo, which upheld individual contribution limits. Four Justices dissented.

The plurality opinion in McCutcheon, written by Justice Roberts, reasoned that legal limits on aggregate contributions violate the First Amendment unless the government has a compelling interest to regulate such spending. But the only possible compelling interest available to the government is the avoidance of quid pro quo bribery, which aggregate contribution limits do nothing to prevent.

The reasoning of the plurality is not a surprise. In one sense, this reasoning is unobjectionable on the grounds that it is simply a logical application of the rationale adopted by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC (2010), which struck down campaign finance laws prohibiting independent expenditures by corporations and unions. The problem is that Citizens United was a sharp and unjustified break with prior precedent.

SCOTUS Arguments Can Become “Must-See Television”

Post author:Lisa A. Mazzie
Post published:October 27, 2014
Post category:Public U.S. Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court prohibits cameras during its oral arguments, although each argument is audio-recorded. But, as Last Week Tonight host John Oliver points out, audio recording makes television coverage of those arguments “basically unwatchable” because television must present its coverage of the arguments by using artist renderings of the proceedings with audio clips.

Yet, as Oliver also points out, what happens at the United States Supreme Court is important and the public should pay attention. Oliver has a solution: the real dogs, fake paws Supreme Court. (Warning: some language is Not Safe For Work (NSFW).)

Justice Ginsburg on Empowering Oral Argument

Post author:Melissa Love Koenig
Post published:October 18, 2014
Post category:Judges & Judicial Process Legal History Legal Practice Public U.S. Supreme Court

An interview with Justice Ginsburg appears in the October issue of Elle magazine. In the article, Justice Ginsburg describes her first oral argument before the United States Supreme Court. Any advocate could relate to her story:

I had, I think, 12 minutes, or something like that, of argument. I was very nervous. In those days, the court sat from 10 to 12, and 1 to 3. It was an afternoon argument. I didn’t dare eat lunch. There were many butterflies in my stomach. I had a very well-prepared opening sentence I had memorized. Looking at them, I thought, I’m talking to the most important court in the land, and they have to listen to me and that’s my captive audience.

Justice Ginsburg argued on behalf of Sharon Frontiero in Frontiero v. Richardson. In that case the Court held that the United States military could not differentiate on the basis of gender in how it provides benefits to service members’ families.

In the interview, Justice Ginsburg recounts that as she spoke before the Court during oral argument her confidence grew:

I felt a sense of empowerment because I knew so much more about the case, the issue, than they did. So I relied on myself as kind of a teacher to get them to think about gender.