August 7, 2002
In Landmark Ruling, Federal Appeals
Court Upholds Campaign Spending Limits
National Voting Rights Institute Press Release
Related AP News Story

National Voting Rights Institute Press Release

In Landmark Ruling, Federal Appeals Court Upholds Campaign Spending Limits

Ruling Revisits Supreme Court's 1976 Decision In Buckley V. Valeo

Ruling "changes The Landscape For Elections Across The Country"

NEW YORK, NY - A federal appeals court today issued a landmark ruling upholding campaign spending limits, the first such appellate court ruling state since the United States Supreme Court struck down congressional spending limits in 1976. In a closely watched case by campaign finance experts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan upheld Vermont's campaign spending limits for its state elections.

"This ruling changes the landscape for elections across this country," says Bonnie Tenneriello, an attorney with the Boston-based National Voting Rights Institute, which helped defend the limits. "More than twenty-five years of experience demonstrate that campaign spending limits are constitutionally justified."

In powerful judicial language, the appeals court states: "Fundamentally, Vermont has shown that, without expenditure limits, its elected officials have been forced to provide privileged access to contributors in exchange for campaign money."

The court confirms that "absent expenditure limitations, the fundraising practices in Vermont will continue to impair the accessibility which is essential to any democratic political system. The race for campaign funds has compelled public officials to give preferred access to contributors, selling their time in order to raise campaign funds."

"In our view," the court continues, "the influence of campaign contributors is pernicious because it is bought. Certain private citizens and organizations should not be given greater access to public office holders - and thus greater influence - on account of those citizens' ability and willingness to pay for candidates' campaigns. Similarly, quid pro quo corruption is troubling not because certain citizens are victorious in the legislative process, but because they achieve the victory by paying public officials for it."

With the likelihood of further appeal by the plaintiffs in this case, the appellate court's decision today sets the stage for the nation's highest court to revisit the constitutionality of campaign spending limits in U.S. elections. The U.S. Supreme Court last reviewed this issue in 1976 in Buckley v. Valeo, which equated money with speech and sanctioned today's system of unlimited campaign spending. In January 2000, however, four justices went on record that the time may have come to revisit that ruling based on new facts and circumstances.

"The time has come to revisit the Supreme Court's ruling in Buckley v. Valeo," says Brenda

Wright, managing attorney at the National Voting Rights Institute and lead counsel for the

defendant-intervenors in defense of Vermont's law. "This ruling recognizes that Vermont's campaign spending limits are necessary to protect the integrity of the electoral process."

This ruling opens the door for similar caps on campaign spending at the federal level and in states across the country. Some 25 years of explosive growth in spending in political campaigns, along with an increasing public perception of government controlled by wealthy contributors, have led many to call for a reconsideration of Buckley. In 1998, twenty-six state attorneys general and twenty-one secretaries of state called for a revisitation of Buckley, as have 40 U.S. Senators and more than 200 constitutional scholars across the country. In September 2001, a federal district judge in Albuquerque found that new facts could justify campaign spending limits for Albuquerque's local elections.

The National Voting Rights Institute joined the Vermont Attorney General's office in defending Vermont's new campaign finance reform law, including the campaign spending limits. The Institute, along with Burlington attorney Peter Welch, represents a coalition of Vermont voters, candidates, and organizations who support the campaign reform law. The plaintiffs include the Vermont Right-to-Life Committee, the Vermont ACLU, and the Vermont Republican State Committee.

Vt. Election Spending Limit Upheld 
August 7, 2002 
By ROSS SNEYD, Associated Press Writer

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- A federal appeals court ruled for the first time Wednesday that a state can limit how much political candidates can spend, even if they are not receiving public funding.

Lawyers involved in the Vermont case said the question will ultimately have to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a 2-1 ruling, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 1997 Vermont law limiting spending by gubernatorial candidates to $300,000. So-called Act 64 sets lower caps for other state offices as well, down to as little as $2,000 for House hopefuls.

Circuit Judge Chester J. Straub said the limits "safeguard Vermont's democratic process from the corrupting influence of excessive and unbridled fund-raising."

"This is an enormous victory for democracy in the United States," said John Bonifaz, a lawyer with the National Voting Rights Institute in Boston, which intervened in the case.

The law had been challenged by the Vermont Republican Party and the Vermont Right to Life Committee.

"This is one of the most dramatic examples of judicial activism in recent history where the heart of the First Amendment, which protects the right to engage in political speech, has now been deprived by a court," said James Bopp, an attorney for the two organizations.

He said he will appeal.

In 1976, the Supreme Court held that states may not limit how much a candidate may spend unless the campaign is funded by taxpayer money.

But the 2nd Circuit said that ruling ignores "how the campaign funds race has affected public confidence and representative democracy" over the years.

In a dissent, Circuit Judge Ralph K. Winter said that the Vermont law violates candidates' First Amendment rights to free political speech.

The limits, he wrote, "limit political speech, including editorializing speech by the press, for no permissible purpose, and entrust those who enforce the law with unfettered and unconstitutional discretion to determine what acts of political advocacy are permitted and prohibited."

The appeals court also upheld Vermont's limits on campaign contributions. Gubernatorial candidates, for example, may accept no more than $400 from each contributor.

The appeals court did throw out portions of the law, including a 25 percent limit on contributions from outside Vermont.

The panel said it would let a lower-court judge decide whether the spending limits should apply to the 2002 campaign or should be delayed for two years.