The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals released a decision last week overturning longstanding Indiana election law limiting the amount of money corporations can give to Super PACs.
The case, Indiana Right to Life Victory Fund and Sarkes Tarzian, Incorporated v. Diego Morales, was all but decided before reaching the 7th Circuit according to the decision, as the Indiana State Supreme Court had determined “held prohibit corporations from making contributions to… Super PACs.” Such laws were deemed unconstitutional in the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. FEC, a precedent which was used in the 7th Circuit’s decision in this case.
The plaintiffs were granted an injunction, allowing Sarkes Tarzian, Inc. to immediately begin making contributions to the Right to Life fund, an anti-abortion Super PAC.
Super PACs are a type of political action committee that became prominent following Citizens United. They can only make independent expenditures without communicating with the campaigns themselves. Often this takes the form of political advertising. According to Open Secrets, an independent nonprofit which researches and tracks money in U.S. politics, Super PACs spent $693,792,880 in the 2019-2020 campaign cycle.
This ruling from the 7th Circuit comes on the heels of an advisory opinion from the FEC earlier this year redefining what constitutes direct coordination between a campaign and a Super PAC. Namely, Super PACs can now provide canvassing data directly to the campaigns. Prior to the decision, Super PACs could not communicate with campaigns whatsoever.
Other limits concerning direct contributions to candidates and non-independent expenditure based organizations (such as traditional PACs which collaborate directly with campaigns) will remain in place.
Comparing Indiana elections to those of neighboring states reveals the potential impact of this decision. Currently, Indiana elections are largely self-funded while campaigns in neighboring states are much more reliant from outside contributions, both from individuals and PACs. In the race for Indiana’s sixth congressional district, the district that has seen the most spending this cycle at just over $10.4 million, no candidate in the primary raised more than $300,000 without their campaign being at least 87% self-financed, a group which included the top three Republican vote-getters.
The top two candidates in the Republican primary, Jefferson Shreve and Sid Mahant, were both over 95% self-funded, with Mahant providing $1.7 million to his own campaign and Shreve, who is now the Republican nominee, spending over $5.7 million on his campaign. Democratic nominee Cinde Wirth provided only $620 to her campaign.
In the other tightly contested congressional primary in Indiana, IN-03, eventual nominee Marlin Stutzman spent $440,000 of his own money and was 44% self-financed while runner-up Tim Smith spent over $1.1 million, making up over 88% of his campaign funds. Democratic nominee Kim Adolph did not self-finance, but she won in spite of having less than a sixth of the funds of competitor Phil Goss, who was over 98% self-financed, contributing over $280,000 to his own campaign.
In Michigan’s 10th district, the highest-spending race in Michigan at over $8.7 million with a tightly contested Democratic primary, no candidate has spent more than $800,000 in self-financing and no candidate’s campaign is over 75% self-funded. The Democratic primary was won by Carl Marlinga, who provided less than $600 to his own campaign, relying mostly on large direct contributions of over $200, while the incumbent Republican nominee did no self-financing and received over $1 million apiece from small direct contributions, large direct contributions, and PAC contributions.
The closest any campaign in a neighboring state came to Shreve in terms of self-funding was Republican David Taylor in Ohio’s 2nd District, who provided over $1.7 million of his own funds to his campaign, which only made up a little over 85% of his funding. Runner-up Tim O’Hara was 87% self-financed and Democratic nominee Samantha Meadows provided no self-financing.
The trend of self-financing being so prominent in Indiana only appears to impact races with contested primaries, as incumbents and primary winners will receive fundraising help from national-level organizations such as the House Majority PAC for Democrats and the House Leadership Fund for Republicans, Super PACs designed to help their respective parties win elections in the House of Representatives.
By Cory Jobman of the (Greenfield) Daily Reporter, a sister newspaper of the Daily Journal.
