McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission

McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission

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Opinion analysis: Clarity on “clear evidence” of drug pre-emption? – Elizabeth McCuskey

Opinion analysis: Court rejects issue preclusion in affirming Crow Tribe’s treaty hunting right – Gregory Ablavsky

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Conference of May 16, 2019

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
12-536	D.D.C	Oct 8, 2013 Tr.Aud.	Apr 2, 2014	5-4	Roberts	OT 2013

Holding: Because aggregate limits restricting how much money a donor may contribute to candidates for federal office, political parties, and political action committees do not further the government’s interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption or the appearance of such corruption, while at the same time seriously restricting participation in the democratic process, they are invalid under the First Amendment.

Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 5-4, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts on April 2, 2014. Justice Thomas filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Ginsburg, Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan joined.

Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearing on proposed campaign finance amendment (Amy Howe)
Legal scholarship highlight: How should the Court assess the workings of the other institutions of government? (Richard Pildes)
Justice Stevens goes to the Senate (Amy Howe)
Symposium: McCutcheon and the future of campaign finance regulation (Jan Baran)
Symposium: The Supreme Court and the McCutcheon decision (Fred Wertheimer)
Symposium: McCutcheon opens the door to massive party contributions, but four Justices continue to push back forcefully (Paul Smith)
Symposium: Welcome to Oligarchs United (Burt Neuborne)
Symposium: The First Amendment’s protection of political speech extends to both donations and spending (Ilya Shapiro)
Symposium: Does the Chief Justice not understand politics, or does he understand it all too well? (Richard Hasen)
Foreword: It’s all forward now (Ronald Collins and David Skover)
Divided Court strikes down campaign contribution caps: In Plain English (Amy Howe)
Opinion analysis: Freeing more political money (Lyle Denniston)
A civil day on the bench for opinions on the impolite world of campaign finance (Mark Walsh)
The ACLU & the McCutcheon case (Ronald Collins)
Book excerpt: Before McCutcheon – The ACLU position in the early years (Ronald Collins)
The Chief Justice looks for a compromise on contribution caps? This morning's argument in Plain English (Amy Howe)
Argument recap: How is political influence bought? (Lyle Denniston)
Court returns to campaign finance reform: Tomorrow's oral argument in Plain English (Amy Howe)
Argument preview: Campaign finance -- again (Lyle Denniston)
Symposium: Voters and contributors (Tamara Piety)
Symposium: Aggregate limits and the fight over frame (Justin Levitt)
Symposium: McCutcheon v. FEC and the fork in the road (Joel Gora)
Originalism: It’s not just for conservatives anymore (Adam Winkler)
Burning the house to roast the pig: Can elections be saved by banning political speech? (Bob Corn-Revere)
Symposium: The distinction between contribution limits and expenditure limits (Erwin Chemerinsky)
Symposium: McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (Ronald Collins and David Skover)
Symposium announcement (Ronald Collins)
GOP seeks more donor freedom (Lyle Denniston)
Campaign donation issue reopened (Lyle Denniston)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Oct 26 2012	Statement as to jurisdiction filed. (Response due December 3, 2012)
Nov 14 2012	Order extending time to file response to petition to and including January 2, 2013.
Jan 2 2013	Motion to dismiss or affirm filed by appellee Federal Election Commission.
Jan 14 2013	Opposition to motion to dismiss or affirm of appellants Shaun McCutcheon, et al., Appellants filed. (Distributed)
Jan 16 2013	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of February 15, 2013.
Feb 19 2013	PROBABLE JURISDICTION NOTED.
Mar 1 2013	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from the Solicitor General.
Mar 7 2013	The time to file the joint appendix and appellants' brief on the merits is extended to and including May 6, 2013.
Mar 11 2013	Motion to dispense with printing the joint appendix filed by appellants Shaun McCutcheon, et al., Appellants.
Apr 1 2013	Motion to dispense with printing the joint appendix filed by petitioner GRANTED.
Apr 22 2013	The time to file appellee's brief on the merits is extended to and including July 18, 2013.
May 6 2013	Brief of appellant Republican National Committee filed.
May 6 2013	Brief of appellant Shaun McCutcheon
May 8 2013	Brief amicus curiae of American Civil Rights Union filed.
May 10 2013	Brief amici curiae of National Republican Senatorial Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee filed.
May 13 2013	Brief amici curiae of Downsize DC Foundation, et al. filed.
May 13 2013	Brief amicus curiae of Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty filed.
May 13 2013	Brief amicus curiae of Senator Mitch McConnell filed.
May 13 2013	Brief amicus curiae of Cato Institute filed.
May 13 2013	Brief amicus curiae of Center for Competitive Politics filed.
May 13 2013	Brief amicus curiae of Committee for Justice filed.
May 13 2013	Brief amicus curiae of Institute for Justice filed.
May 13 2013	Brief amici curiae of Tea Party Leadership Fund, et al. filed.
May 13 2013	Brief amicus curiae of Cause of Action Institute filed.
May 13 2013	Brief amici curiae of Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression and the Media Institute filed.
Jul 18 2013	Brief of appellee Federal Election Commission filed.
Jul 22 2013	CIRCULATED.
Jul 23 2013	SET FOR ARGUMENT on Tuesday, October 8, 2013.
Jul 24 2013	Brief amicus curiae of Brennan Center for Justice at N.Y.U. School of Law filed. (Distributed)
Jul 24 2013	Brief amicus curiae of Americans for Campaign Reform filed. (Distributed)
Jul 25 2013	Brief amici curiae of Representatives Chris Van Hollen and David Price filed. (Distributed)
Jul 25 2013	Brief amicus curiae of Professor Lawrence Lessig filed. (Distributed)
Jul 25 2013	Brief amici curiae of Democratic Members of the United States House of Representatives filed. (Distributed)
Jul 25 2013	Brief amici curiae of The Campaign Legal Center, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Jul 25 2013	Motion of Senator Mitch McConnell for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument filed.
Jul 25 2013	Brief amici curiae of Communications Workers of America, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Jul 25 2013	Brief amici curiae of National Education Association, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Aug 5 2013	Record from U.S.D.C. for the District of Columbia is electronic and located on PACER.
Aug 16 2013	Reply of appellant Republican National Committee filed. (Distributed)
Aug 19 2013	Reply of appellant Shaun McCutcheon filed. (Distributed)
Aug 30 2013	Motion of Senator Mitch McConnell for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument GRANTED.
Oct 8 2013	Argued. For appellants: Erin E. Murphy, Washington, D. C.; and Bobby R. Burchfield, Washington, D. C. (for Senator Mitch McConnell, as amicus curiae.) For appellee: Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C.
Apr 2 2014	Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Roberts, C. J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Scalia, Kennedy, and Alito, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined.
May 5 2014	JUDGMENT ISSUED

Featured Posts

Opinion analysis: Justices narrow bankrupts’ power to rescind contracts in bankruptcy – Ronald Mann

Opinion analysis: Clarity on “clear evidence” of drug pre-emption? – Elizabeth McCuskey

Opinion analysis: Court rejects issue preclusion in affirming Crow Tribe’s treaty hunting right – Gregory Ablavsky
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This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court released orders from the May 16 conference on Monday; the justices granted Ritzen Group Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC.
On Monday, the justices released their opinions in Mission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, Herrera v. Wyoming and Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht.
On Thursday, the justices meet for their May 23 conference.
Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Decisions
- Herrera v. Wyoming Wyoming’s statehood did not abrogate the Crow Tribe’s 1868 federal treaty right to hunt on the “unoccupied lands of the United States”; the lands of the Bighorn National Forest did not become categorically “occupied” when the forest was created.
- Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht “Clear evidence” that the Food and Drug Administration would not have approved a change to a drug’s label – thus pre-empting a state-law failure-to-warn claim – is evidence showing that the drug manufacturer fully informed the FDA of the justifications for the warning required by state law and that the FDA, in turn, informed the drug manufacturer that the FDA would not approve a change to the drug’s label to include that warning; the question of agency disapproval is primarily one of law for a judge to decide.
- Mission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC A bankruptcy debtor’s rejection of an executory contract under 11 U.S.C. §365 has the same effect as a breach of that contract outside bankruptcy; such an act thus cannot rescind rights that the contract previously granted.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- al-Alwi v. Trump (1) Whether the government’s statutory authority to detain Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi has unraveled; (2) whether, alternatively, the government’s statutory authority to detain al-Alwi has expired because the conflict in which he was captured has ended; and (3) whether the Authorization for Use of Military Force authorizes, and the Constitution permits, detention of an individual who was not “engaged in an armed conflict against the United States” in Afghanistan prior to his capture.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. Whether a state, consistent with the 14th Amendment, may require an ultrasound as part of informed consent at least 18 hours before an abortion.
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Cases argued 70

Cases decided 32

Summary reversals 4

Merits cases granted to date 73

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Justice Thomas at Pepperdine Law School

On March 30, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke with former clerk Brittney Lane Kubisch and Pepperdine University President-elect James Gash at Pepperdine University School of Law. Thomas told the audience that he had no plans to retire from the Supreme Court.

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Cases argued	70
Cases decided	32
Summary reversals	4
Merits cases granted to date	73

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13
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16
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20
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