Court to Hear Campaign Finance Challenge
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Thursday it will hold a special session in September to hear arguments on the constitutionality of a law meant to govern how candidates raise money in the 2004 presidential and congressional elections.
The court will meet Sept. 8, a month ahead of the start of its regular term. In apparent acknowledgment of the complexity of the case, the court will hear four hours of argument instead of the usual one hour.
The 2002 law bans corporate, union and unlimited contributions -- known as soft money -- to national party committees. It also bars a range of interest groups, including those financed with corporate or union money and those that do not disclose their donors, from airing ads mentioning federal candidates in their districts in the month before a primary and two months before a general election.
A complex lower court ruling upheld parts of the law and struck down others. That ruling spawned 12 separate appeals to the Supreme Court, covering some 80 groups or individuals and nearly two dozen legal questions.
Out of that tangle, the high court organized the parties into two sides and set out when each must file its legal papers.
The high court will have the last word on the new rules, which are already in effect.
The case is unlike nearly all others the high court hears.
First, the court did not have its customary choice about whether to hear the case. Supreme Court review was written right into the law when Congress passed it.
Because of the complexity of the lower court ruling, there was not a clear winner and loser when the case was appealed. Ordinarily, the losing side or a lower court case appeals to the Supreme Court, and frames the legal questions the court it wants the court to review. The winner at the lower court level can then respond, usually urging the court to leave the lower court ruling in place.
In the campaign finance case, neither side wanted to go first.
The Bush administration is defending the law and proposed the strategy the court ultimately chose.
Those challenging various provision of the law will lodge their complaints first, followed by the government defenders of the law -- the Federal Election Commission and six members of Congress.
That will consolidate all complaints against the law, and allow the government to defend it as a whole, Solicitor General Theodore Olson told the court in a filing last week.
Under that approach, the lower court's nearly 1,700-page ruling is essentially irrelevant.
Last month Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist turned down a request from interest groups such as the National Right to Life Committee and the Club for Growth to lift the law's restrictions on political ads until the high court considers whether the limits are constitutional.
``An act of Congress is presumed to be constitutional ... and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act should remain in effect until the disposition of this case by the Supreme Court,'' Rehnquist wrote then.
The case is McConnell v. FEC, 02-1674.
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On the Net:
Supreme Court: supremecourtus.gov
Campaign finance background: fec.gov
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