16/05/2025
From Maine Public this morning:
Super PACs lawsuit headed to court
Next week, a federal judge in Portland will hear oral arguments on a voter-approved campaign finance law that could have major national implications.
Last fall, nearly 75% of Maine voters supported a ballot initiative that established a $5,000 cap on annual contributions to so-called super PACs that spend money on candidate elections. While the initiative flew under the radar given the other elections last year, the referendum intentionally made Maine the national test-case in the fight against “big money” in politics.
Supporters hope Thursday’s hearing in U.S. District Court will be the first step toward getting the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Opponents who sued to block the law, meanwhile, point out that lower courts have consistently overturned such limits on “independent” spending.
Super PACs play an increasingly influential role in elections.
They are political action committees that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose candidates. But they cannot contribute directly to a candidate, nor can they coordinate their political activity with a candidate’s campaign — hence why they make what are known as “independent expenditures.”
Traditional PACs, by comparison, can contribute up to $5,000 directly to candidates each election.
Super PACs were a byproduct of the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United that opened the door for unlimited political spending (a form of “free speech,” in the court’s view) by corporations, labor unions and other organizations.
The decision also led to an explosion in “dark money,” which is spending by groups that do not have to disclose their donors. While super PACs are required to disclose donors, the dark money groups who provide them with huge sums of political cash don’t have to say who gave them the money in the first place. And in 2024, dark money groups funneled more than $1 billion to super PACs, according to the campaign finance watchdog site Open Secrets.
All of which brings us to last November’s ballot in Maine.
Question 1 set a $5,000 annual limit on contributions to super PACs that spend money on candidate campaigns. The groups behind the initiative — the national group Equal Citizens and the Maine-based organization Citizens to End SuperPACs — argued that super PACs frequently violate the no-coordination firewall with campaigns. And they said allowing unlimited contributions invites illegal quid-pro-quo transactions between dark money donors and candidates.
“Question 1 to limit super PACs does not limit free speech in any way,” said Cara McCormick with Citizens to End SuperPACs. “Super PACs can still say whatever they want and spend whatever they can. They just can’t take more than $5,000 from any one person under the new law.”
Two Maine-based PACs, Dinner Table Action and For Our Future, are now asking the federal courts to overturn the state’s new law. Working with lawyers at the Institute for Free Speech, they argue Maine’s $5,000 limit clearly violates free-speech protections enshrined in Citizens United and a subsequent case, SpeechNow v. FEC, in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, which is widely considered the nation’s second-highest court.
“We challenge an unconstitutional law that severely restricts important free speech and association rights,” said Alex Titcomb, who helps lead both PACs. “The backers knew it was unconstitutional when they advanced it. We hope the court will join every other court to consider the issue and recognize that Maine citizens enjoy the freedom to speak, associate, and advocate without government interference.”
