Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate (21-12)

argument 21-12

Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate

Supreme Court of the United States 1h 28m 7 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the central legal issue the Court is addressing in this case?

John G. Roberts 0:00

We will hear argument first this morning in Case 2112, the Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate. Mr. Stewart.

Jeffrey B. Wall 0:12

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, appellee's suit should be dismissed for lack of standing. But if the court reaches the merits, it should reverse the district court's judgment and hold that the statutory loan repayment limit is constitutional. Appellees lack standing for two reasons. First, although they have directed their challenge to the statutory loan repayment limit, appellees stipulated below that the first $250,000 of Senator Cruz's loan was repaid with pre-election funds. The statute, therefore, does not currently restrict the senator's ability to obtain full repayment of his loan. Second, the current regulatory barrier to repayment is self-inflicted. Appellees could have avoided any injury simply by behaving exactly as they would have if the statute and regulation did not exist.

Jeffrey B. Wall 0:57

Instead, they went out of their way to engage in transactions that they would not otherwise have undertaken solely to subject the senator to a financial loss and thereby lay the groundwork for a lawsuit. That deliberate self-infliction of injury for no purpose other than to facilitate litigation severed the causal link between the challenged laws and Senator Cruz's injury. On the merits, the loan repayment limit is constitutional. It imposes insubstantial burdens on the financing of electoral campaigns, and it targets a practice that has significant corruptive potential. A post-election contributor generally knows which candidate has won the election, and post-election contributions do not further the usual purposes of donating to electoral campaigns.

Jeffrey B. Wall 1:42

And because repayment of candidate loans increases the candidate's personal wealth, the conduct the statute regulates implicates the same concerns that underlie limits on gifts to federal officials. I welcome the Court's questions.

Clarence Thomas 1:57

Mr. Stewart, other than Section 304, is there any other basis for enforcing the regulations? None has been identified so far. So if Section 304 is gone, there is no

Jeffrey B. Wall 2:12

enforcement? I think there is a substantial practical likelihood that that would be the result. It would still be open to the FEC to examine other provisions of the federal campaign finance laws and ask questions. whether the 20-day limit would continue to serve a valid purpose even without the statute. But we would concede the most likely result, if the statute were declared invalid, is that the regulation would cease to be on the books or would cease to be enforceable. But none of this was litigated below. The district court didn't decide the case on that basis. The district court was under the misimpression that the first $250,000 of Senator Cruz's loan had been repaid with post-election funds. The other thing I would say is, leaving aside the point that the injury was self-inflicted, which I do want to emphasize, there was a more straightforward way that this case could have been litigated.

Jeffrey B. Wall 3:05

EPLEs could have identified the regulation as the provision of law that was causing their injury and filed suit to have the regulation set aside. And if they had done that, they could have identified as one potential ground for invalidating the regulation the the allegation that the regulation rested on an invalid statute now from appellee's standpoint there would have been two disadvantages to pursuing the claim that way first if they had identified the regulation as the target of their challenge they wouldn't have been able to invoke the three judge court mechanism with a right of direct appeal to this court and second they have alleged in counts three through five of their complaint both constitutional and non-constitutional challenges to the regulation.

Jeffrey B. Wall 3:50

And if they had identified the regulation as the source of their injury, then under usual principles of constitutional avoidance, the court would have been obliged first to consider their non-constitutional challenges to the regulation, and only if those were rejected would it have proceeded to the constitutional issues.