Just days after 2016 GOP hopefuls traveled to Las Vegas to kowtow to billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, the Supreme Court has made it even easier for the ultra-rich to control elections. In McCutcheon v. FEC, the five conservative Justices ruled that aggregate limits in campaign contributions are unconstitutional. [...]
The McCutcheon decision gives the wealthiest even more influence in elections. The public policy organization Demos has estimated that the decision will “bring more than $1 billion in additional campaign contributions from elite donors through the 2020 election cycle.” According to their analysis, if these limits had not been in place during the 2012 election, 1,219 super-wealthy donors would have more than tripled their giving to more than $459 million. That number would have been almost 50 percent more than the $313 million in small dollar contributions to the Obama and Romney campaigns.
