Bloomberg BNA:

Challengers seeking to eliminate a decades-old federal ban on campaign contributions from government contractors have filed a petition seeking Supreme Court review of the case (Wagner v. Federal Election Commission, U.S., Docket No. Unavail., cert petition filed10/2/15).

The decision to seek review came nearly three months after a unanimous, en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected the challenge to the contractor contribution ban (Wagner v. Federal Election Commission, D.C. Cir., 13-5162, 7/7/15)….

The Supreme Court petition argued that the ban on campaign contributions as applied to individual contractors is not “sufficiently tailored” to pass muster under the Constitution’s First Amendment and the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment. Although the FEC interprets the ban to apply to independent expenditures influencing campaigns—including contributions to super political action committees—that ban is not specifically challenged in the case, the petition noted.