Justices will hear Ted Cruz’s challenge to loan restrictions in campaign-finance lawThe 2018 Texas Senate race between Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Beto O’Rourke was one of the closest races in Texas in 40 years, with O’Rourke falling short of unseating Cruz by roughly 200,000 votes out of 8.3 million cast. It was also expensive, with the candidates collectively raising more than $100 million. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a case arising out of that election, Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate. In it, Cruz challenges a provision of federal campaign-finance law limiting how and when candidates can repay loans that they make to their own campaigns.
On the day before Election Day, Cruz loaned his campaign $260,000. The campaign later paid him back $250,000 of that loan, purportedly using contributions that it received after the election. Under Section 304 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, $250,000 is the maximum amount of post-election contributions that can be used to repay a candidate’s loans made to his campaign before the election. Therefore, the campaign could not pay the remaining $10,000 back and the money was instead characterized as a contribution from Cruz to his campaign.
Cruz went to federal court in 2019, asking the court to block enforcement of Section 304 on the ground that it violates the First Amendment. A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed. The court ruled that the limit on loan repayments violates the First Amendment because the government had not shown that it serves an interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption – that is, politicians trading favors for contributions – or that the limit is sufficiently targeted to serve that interest. The Federal Election Commission appealed to the Supreme Court in July, and the justices announced in late September that they would hear oral argument in the government’s case..............
https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/01/justices-will-hear-ted-cruzs-challenge-to-loan-restrictions-in-campaign-finance-law/
