And that was just donations to 501(c)(4) groups who can not give money directly to a candidate nor coordinate their efforts with an individual candidate, so the money does not go directly into the campaign accounts (or their pockets) of individual candidates. However, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiff in the
'McCutcheon v. FEC' case, this could all change. It's possible that if the 5 conservative justices rule once again that 'money' is 'speech', as they did in
'Citizens United', then they could remove campaign limitations altogether for the candidates themselves, which is currently limited to an individual giving only $2,600 per candidate, per election cycle, with a maximum of $48,600 combined for all the candidates that an individual could contribute to in one election cycle. However, if the court removes this limitation, which is what the plaintiff in the case, Shaun McCutcheon, is demanding claiming that his 1st Amendment right of 'free speech' is being violated, then there would be nothing stopping people like the Koch brothers from simply writing million dollar checks directly to virtual any and all the candidates that they think would do their bidding. And with $62 billion to work with, they could make multimillionaires out of every member of Congress, every Governor, every state legislator in the country, and they would hardly notice the outflow.
I don't think this is the America that the Founding Fathers had in mind nor the thousands of Americans who've given their lives in defence of the Constitution and the freedom and liberty that it promised our citizens.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.