Federal Judge Throws Out Part Of Illinois Campaign Finance Law
By aaroncynic in News on Mar 15, 2012 7:20PM
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that limiting contributions to political action committees, and the number of PAC’s a person can form, unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen ruled in favor of Personal PAC, an abortion rights committee who sued in February, charging that contribution limits violated constitutionally guaranteed free-speech protections.
The State Journal-Register reports organizations like Personal PAC were:
"Prohibited from taking more than $10,000 from any one person, $20,000 from corporations, labor unions, political party committees or association and $50,000 from other PACs or a candidate’s political committee."The judge based his ruling on the Citizens United decision.
Terry Cosgrove, CEO of Personal PAC, applauded the ruling, telling the Sun-Times it allows his organization “to raise the necessary funds to effectively advocate for the rights of women and girls in Illinois.” However, campaign finance watchdogs believe the decision will open the door to corruption. Kent Redfield, an emeritus professor of political studies at the University of Illinois in Springfield, told the State Journal-Register:
“You can imagine the equivalent of (state Sen. Bill) Brady and (Gov. Pat) Quinn taking money directly into Citizens for Quinn and Citizens for Brady and then having this single-candidate, independent PAC … taking unlimited contributions and making independent expenditures, supposedly totally independent of the campaigns.”David Morrison, deputy director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, was more blunt, saying “We’ve seen at the federal level that these kinds of committees can present a tremendous risk of corruption, and we know from recent history that our state is fertile ground for corruption.”