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After all, Associate Justice Elena Kagan repeatedly noted, federal law already limits to $2,900 how much donors may give to individual campaigns. The court's liberal justices pushed back on the notion that Congress is unable to impose limits on candidate loans. If campaigns can't repay that money with contributions made before the election, the candidate has to take the loss. A campaign is prohibited from repaying any amount above $250,000 from post-election contributions. Any amount over that threshold has to be repaid within 20 days after the election or it converts to a donation, meaning the candidate can't recover it. More: Justices Sotomayor, Gorsuch push back on reports of dispute over mask wearingĪt issue are federal requirements governing how campaigns repay loans from a candidate in excess of $250,000. Cruz suit that may undermine campaign finance law

"And that seems to be, therefore, a chill on your ability to loan your campaign money."Ĭruz: Supreme Court to hear Sen. "The choice is to spend that without any possibility of getting it back or not spending it at all," said Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The Supreme Court since 1976 has viewed campaign spending as a form of speech. While the provision itself appears to be rarely invoked, advocates said the nation’s highest court could use the case to take another whack at campaign finance rules intended to limit money flowing into federal elections. Bush in 2002 that governs when and how campaigns may repay candidates for loans above $250,000. Ted Cruz and rule that a federal law violates the First Amendment because, in the name of curbing corruption, it limits how candidates are repaid when they lend to their own campaign.Ĭruz, a Texas Republican and 2016 presidential candidate, challenged a provision of a campaign finance law signed by President George W. WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court hinted Wednesday it may side with Sen.

The FEC asked the Supreme Court to toss out the lower court's decision and send the case back for further consideration.Watch Video: Supreme Court halts Biden's COVID-19 mandates for large employers The limit, the court said, burdens the exercise of political speech. The federal district court denied the FEC's request and concluded not only that Cruz had standing to sue, because he had suffered a "$10,000 financial injury," but that the loan-repayment limit violates the First Amendment. But the commission argued he and his campaign committee did not have the legal standing to sue and moved to dismiss the claims. District Court in the District of Columbia. Because more than 20 days had lapsed since the election, the remaining $10,000 debt could not be repaid, according to the FEC.Ĭruz challenged the loan-repayment limit in April 2019 as a violation of the First Amendment and sued the FEC in the U.S. Then, in December 2018, it repaid Cruz $250,000, leaving $10,000 outstanding. In the 20 days after the election, the committee used its cash-on-hand to repay its creditors first. Federal law allows a campaign to borrow money from either a third-party lender or from the candidate himself, but the Texas senator argues the $250,000 repayment limit violates the First Amendment. The legal battle over the campaign finance restrictions joins high-profile cases involving abortion, the Second Amendment and religious liberty that the justices will weigh this term.Ĭruz's dispute with the FEC centers around a provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that sets a $250,000 cap on the amount of money raised after Election Day that a campaign may use to repay debt owed to the candidate. The appeal from the FEC of a lower court decision is one of five cases the high court added to its docket as it prepares to begin its new term Monday. Washington - The Supreme Court on Thursday said it will hear a dispute between Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) over campaign finance rules limiting the repayment of a candidate's personal loans to their campaigns.