Davis v. Federal Election Commission

This case challenges a provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of
2002 (BCRA) known as the Millionaires' Amendment that
raises the limits on contributions to congressional candidates if their
opponent spends above a threshold amount of $350,000 of personal funds on his
or her campaign.  The provision relaxes
the limits on political party spending in coordination with a candidate whose
opponent is self-financed.  Congress enacted the Millionaires’
Amendment to address the concern that candidates of modest means cannot
effectively compete in increasingly expensive federal elections. 

Jack Davis, a millionaire Democratic candidate who
ran two self-financed campaigns for the House of Representatives in upstate New York, challenged the
so-called Millionaires’ Amendment.  Davis claims that the
Millionaires’ Amendment violates the First Amendment because it burdens his
speech and deters self-financing candidates from running for Congress by
conferring benefits on their opponents.  

Davis vs. FEC was first filed in
the fall of 2006 and was being appealed to the Supreme Court after a
three-panel federal judge upheld the Millionaires’ Amendment.

On
March 26th, 2008, the Brennan Center along with Campaign Legal
Center, Democracy 21,
Public Citizen Litigation Group and others submitted an amicus curiae brief in
support of the FEC.  The Center’s amicus
brief may be found here.

The Brennan
Center’s amicus brief contends
that the Millionaires’ Amendment places no restraints on candidates who choose
to self-finance their political campaigns. 
Instead of setting a ceiling on the expenditures a wealthy candidate may
make, the provision simply relaxes certain contribution expenditure limits that
would otherwise apply to his or her opponent.  In its briefing, the Brennan Center
called on the high court to limit its ruling to the constitutionality of the
Millionaires’ Amendment and avoid any broader conclusions.  

On June 26th, 2008, the Supreme Court made a decision, striking down the federal Millionaire's Amendment by a vote of five to four in an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito. The Court's analysis relied on two main focuses: that there was an asymmetrical burden on speech because the Millionaire's Amendment caused candidates in the same election to be bound by two different sets of rules, and that there was no compelling state interest, as the relaxed limits on spending would not prevent corruption, or the appearance of corruption. The court did cite Buckley v. Valeo in its support for public finance systems. The Brennan Center has produced a one-page summary of
the distinctions between the Court's decision in Davis and the constitutionality
of public funding systems.