The ballot initiative approved by Maine voters last year would set a $5,000 annual limit on donations to political action committees that make “independent expenditures” on candidate campaigns. Supporters argue that the cap is needed to avoid potential quid-pro-quo corruption — which is when an individual or group makes a donation and gets political favors in return from the elected official who benefited from their supposedly independent spending.
Roughly 75% of voters supported Question 1 on last year’s ballot. But two Maine super PACs — For Our Future and Dinner Table Action — teamed up with national group the Institute for Free Speech to challenge the new law in court.
On Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Frink Wolf declared the restrictions unconstitutional and blocked enforcement of the law.
“The portions of the act limiting contributions to PACs for the purposes of making independent expenditures … violate the First Amendment on their face because there is no set of circumstances where they could be applied constitutionally,” Wolf wrote in her 15-page ruling.
You can find the opinion here.