Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus said Tuesday that he believes the Supreme Court should go beyond its recent ruling that struck down the limits on how much money a donor can give during an election cycle and get rid of all campaign finance restrictions.
Reacting to the McCuecheon v. FEC ruling on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show, Priebus said the court’s decision really won’t change how much money flows into politics since it only struck down aggregate limits on donations — the amount an individual donor can give to a single candidate (or to the RNC) remains intact.
“I don’t think we should have caps at all,” he said.
Asked if he would push the Supreme Court to further deregulate campaign contributions, Priebus said he would.
“And I would look to cases that allow us to raise soft money, and I would look to cases that allow us to raise money for the conventions, but disclose it all,” he said. “You know, I mean, that’s kind of where I’m at personally.”
But Priebus also acknowledged that he’s conflicted about disclosing political contributions when that leads to businesses and individuals being targeted, as many conservatives argue was the case for ex-Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich. Eich resigned after it came to light that he donated $1,000 to the campaign for Proposition 8 in California.
“I mean, you want to be for disclosure,” Preibus said. “But when you start to see some of the cases out there where people are targeted, and businesses are targeted and picketed and threatened for political contributions, then now you’re suppressing free speech through disclosure. So I mean, even things that I want to agree with are getting to be very difficult.”
h/t Washington Post
