By
The Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court waded into the debate over money in politics yesterday, agreeing to decide whether some federal spending limits on political parties are an unconstitutional crimp on free speech.
A ruling in the case could erase spending limits on party "hard money," the cash raised under federal law that can be used for direct help to candidates.
Without limits, parties would be free to funnel huge amounts to chosen candidates early on, or lavish last-minute cash on the closest races.
The court will look at the caps on a political party's spending done in concert with a particular campaign. Such party money, called coordinated expenditures, usually goes for such things as mass mailings and ads promoting an individual candidate.
The court earlier struck down limits on party money spent independently of the candidate's campaign. In both instances, the party money is not considered a campaign contribution since it remains separate from the candidate's coffers.
"Depending on how the court sides, the parties could be given yet another device for contributing even greater amounts of money to the political process," said Steven Weiss, spokesman for the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign money.
"This would remove any remaining obstacle that parties now face to spending as
much hard money as they want, whenever they want and wherever they want," Weiss said.
Reducing the influence of money in politics was the hallmark of Sen. John McCain's insurgent candidacy in the Republican presidential primary, and campaign finance has remained an issue in the presidential campaign.
At the first presidential debate last week, Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic nominee, tried to get his Republican counterpart, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, to sign on to a proposal to overhaul current campaign finance laws.
Bush instead invoked a litany of Clinton-Gore campaign finance scandals dating to 1996. "This man has no credibility on the issue," Bush said.
The major parties are raising ever-increasing sums of hard money. As of June 30, Republicans had $65 million of it in the bank, and Democrats had $40 million.
The Supreme Court case arose out of a 1986 Senate race in Colorado.
Ruling on another part of the same dispute, the Supreme Court said in 1996 that political parties could spend unlimited hard money as long as they weren't working in consultation with the candidate.
At the time, the court bypassed the debate about whether spending could be limited if parties were consulting with the candidates.
This time around, the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department argued in court papers that candidates would know where huge influxes of "coordinated expenditures" came from, and once in office might feel beholden to individual party officials.
"There is no reason to believe that such individuals are immune from the corrupting temptations and self-interest of other persons," the government argued.
Without limits on coordinated expenditures, parties could become funnels for campaign cash from individuals and political action committees with their own axes to grind, the government added.
The Colorado Republican Party argued that the limits are an unfair infringement on the First Amendment right to free speech and should be scrapped nationwide.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Colorado Republicans earlier this year.
Coordinated expenditures differ from unregulated "soft money," which may be used for advertisements and other campaign efforts to generate support for candidates as long as the activities do not directly urge voters to vote for specific
candidates.
The FEC limits national and state parties to spending $33,780 apiece to help elect a House candidate. Senate limits are based on population and range from $135,120 in Delaware to $3.27 million in California. Those limits involve spending coordinated with the candidates.
The money is in addition to the maximum $10,000 contribution a party can make to a House campaign and $17,500 to a Senate campaign.
In this election season, the FEC has said it would continue enforcing expenditure limits everywhere outside the 10th Circuit jurisdiction: Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.
The commission said it would retroactively fine political parties that exceed the limits in those states if the Supreme Court overturns the decision.
It was not clear if the Supreme Court might extend its ruling to party spending on presidential campaigns. The current limit on coordinated spending by a party for
a presidential candidate is $13.7 million.
The case is Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, 00-191.
