US Supreme Court rules in favor of Ted Cruz in funding case

Washington — The US Supreme Court’s conservative majority sided with Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas on Monday in his challenge to a provision of the federal campaign finance law, in a ruling that an opposition judge said threatened to inflict “further harm” to America’s reputation. Policy.

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The justices, in a 6-3 decision dividing the Court on ideological grounds, agreed that the somewhat vague section of the law violated the Constitution. The decision comes as campaigning for the 2022 midterm elections heats up.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote to the majority that the clause “harms basic political discourse without sufficient justification.”

President Joe Biden’s administration defended the ruling as an anti-corruption measure, and in dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the majority, by dropping it, “gave the green light to all the sordid negotiations that Congress saw fit to stop.” The judge added that the decision “will only serve to discredit the political system in this country.”

The issue may be important to some candidates for federal office who wish to obtain large loans to finance their election campaigns. However, the Biden administration also said the vast majority of those loans are less than $250,000, so the ruling Cruz appealed does not apply.

The case includes a section of the Party Campaign Reform Act of 2002. The provision states that if a candidate lends their own campaign money before the election, the campaign cannot compensate the candidate more than $250,000 in money raised after Election Day. Loans can be repaid from the money raised before the election.