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The hope is that now with the McCutcheon decision, the Kagan-Roberts alliance is over.

McCutcheon decision means Roberts back on the ‘Right’ team



The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, released April 2, means that free speech triumphs over government restrictions—and that Chief Justice John Roberts is back with the conservatives.
Chris Chocola, the president of the Club for Growth, the political action committee that funds conservative GOP candidates, said, “This is a great day for the first amendment, and a great day for political speech.” Chocola correctly puts the decision in the context of the high court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, also written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. “With Citizens United and now McCutcheon, the Supreme Court has continued to restrict the role of the federal government in limiting and regulating speech, he said. “We hope further efforts to increase the ability of citizens to participate in our democracy are also successful.”

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But, it was also in 2010 that Roberts wandered off the reservation. This decision means he is back. The plaintiffs, Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee, challenged the limits federal law put on the number of candidates and campaigns an individual can contribute in a two-year election cycle: $46,200 to federal candidates and $70,000 total to all candidates and committees. McCutcheon wanted to give and the RNC wanted to receive, thus a case was born. In his petition, McCutcheon claimed that in the cycle leading to the 2012 federal elections, he contributed to 16 federal candidates, and if the limits were lifted he would have contributed to 12 more. His case was dismissed by the U.S. District Court in Washington because that court held that it was not the role of the courts to “parse” the meaning of Congress’ intent. The case before the Supreme Court was actually an appeal of that dismissal. For Republicans, the decision means that through campaign expenditures, it will have a chance to counter the mainstream media’s liberal bias. For conservatives, the relief is that Roberts appears to be back in the court’s conservative bloc. “The Government has a strong interest, no less critical tour democratic system, in combating corruption and its appearance,” wrote Roberts for the majority. “We have, however, held that this interest must be limited to a specific kind of corruption—quid pro quo corruption—in order to ensure that the Government’s efforts do not have the effect of restricting the First Amendment right of citizens to choose who shall govern them,” he wrote. In addition to ruling against the limits, the court overturned its 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision that supported federal contributions. Roberts wrote that the Buckley ruling was based on warranted fear and speculation. Two years ago, Roberts warranted much fear and speculation with he wrote both the dissenting opinion striking down the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the majority opinion sustaining the law. To his credit, President George W. Bush did a good job vetting Roberts. Among other things, the Bush White House arranged for a member of the Federalist Society to take Roberts to lunch for “conversation” about his jurisprudence, especially on matters of life. Unfortunately, the magisterium of the Roberts Court was hijacked by the high court’s internal dynamics. When Roberts was nominated in 2005 to replace retired justice Sandra D. O’Connor, the serving chief justice William H. Rehnquist passed away and Bush reprogrammed into the chief justice slot, a not so subtle snub to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, appointed by President Ronald W. Reagan. With four solid liberals on the court, Kennedy took over O’Connor’s act at the deciding vote, something he took to a high art in the Roberts tenure—making himself the man who decides which way the court ruled. Then, enter the Kagan. In 2010, President Barack Obama put Elena Kagan on the high court, where she now serves as the Democratic Whip. Kagan’s greatest achievement was to flip Roberts on ObamaCare. While Time magazine and other left-wing outlets ran stories about the “Kennedy Court,” on the inside, Kagan worked over Roberts convincing him that the way to take back his court from Kennedy was to join the liberals in saving the president’s health care restructuring law. Of course, the Obama White House, knowing about the Kagan-Roberts bro-mance in play, put out the word that it was worried sick about losing the ObamaCare decision. This ruse was very effective at convincing conservatives to take their foot off the gas and coast to an effortless victory, unaware that they were needed to put heat on Roberts. The hope is that now with the McCutcheon decision, the Kagan-Roberts alliance is over.


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Neil W. McCabe -- Bio and Archives

Neil W. McCabe is the editor of Human Event’s “Guns & Patriots” e-letter and was a senior reporter at the Human Events newspaper. McCabe deployed with the Army Reserve to Iraq for 15 months as a combat historian. For many years, he was a reporter and photographer for “The Pilot,” Boston’s Catholic paper. He was also the editor of two free community papers, “The Somerville (Mass.) News and “The Alewife (North Cambridge, Mass.).”


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