{"id":3405,"date":"2008-06-26T13:59:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-26T19:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/06\/high-court-strikes-down-millionaires-amendment\/"},"modified":"2008-06-26T13:59:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-26T19:59:00","slug":"high-court-strikes-down-millionaires-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/06\/high-court-strikes-down-millionaires-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"High court strikes down Millionaire’s Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Supreme Court today struck down the so-called Millionaire\u2019s Amendment<\/a> that tripled contribution limits for candidates whose opponents dug deep into their own pockets to fund their campaigns.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In a 5-4 decision, the high court ruled that the law violated the First Amendment because it gave a fundraising advantage to opponents of those who used personal funds to finance campaign speech, the Associated Press<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In this year\u2019s primaries in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>, three federal candidates — 2nd Congressional District Republican candidate Aubrey Dunn<\/a>, 2nd Congressional District Democratic candidate Harry Teague<\/a> and 3rd Congressional District Democratic candidate Don Wiviott<\/a> — triggered the amendment by contributing more than $350,000 to their own campaigns.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That tripled contribution limits for their opponents to $6,900 for the primary.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Teague won his race, but Wiviott and Dunn went on to lose to opponents who were able to boost their fundraising because of the increased contribution limits. Wiviott and Dunn could not be immediately reached for comment.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Ben R. Luj\u00e1n<\/a>, who won the 3rd District Democratic primary, did take advantage of the increased contribution limits, but that wasn\u2019t the reason he won, campaign spokesman Mark Nicastre said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cCommissioner Luj\u00e1n has a proven record of standing up for New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> and a strong connection to the people. That\u2019s why he won the primary, and that\u2019s why he\u2019ll represent New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> well in Congress,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cEven with the Millionaire\u2019s Amendment, Commissioner Luj\u00e1n was outspent three-to-one by his main challenger (Wiviott), but Commissioner Luj\u00e1n still won the six-person Democratic primary by 17 percent because of his record of expanding renewable-energy development, creating regional solutions to global warming and standing up to corporations that ripped off the people of New Mexico,\u201d Nicastre said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

A spokesman for Ed Tinsley<\/a>, who defeated Dunn in the 2nd District GOP primary, could not be immediately reached for comment.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The 6-year-old law would be constitutional if it raised contribution limits for the wealthy candidates in addition to their opponents, Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion he authored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Supreme Court today struck down the so-called Millionaire\u2019s Amendment that tripled contribution limits for candidates whose opponents dug deep into their own pockets to fund their campaigns. In a 5-4 decision, the high court ruled that the law violated the First Amendment because it gave a fundraising advantage to opponents of those who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}