“D.C. Circuit Judges Wary of Challenge to Campaign Contribution Limits”

Bloomberg BNA:

A constitutional challenge to per-election limits on campaign contributions faced skeptical questioning from nearly all the judges of the federal appeals court in Washington during a March 29 hearing.
Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit repeatedly asked attorney Allen Dickerson whether a decision in favor of the challengers in the case, known as Holmes v. Federal Election Commission (D.C. Cir., No. 14-05281, argued 3/29/17), could threaten the whole structure of campaign contribution limits, which has been in place for decades at the federal level and in most states.
Garland, whose nomination last year to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama was never considered by the Senate, led the questioning in the D.C. Circuit hearing. The case is being considered by an en banc panel of 11 active D.C. Circuit judges. One judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson, was absent from the oral argument.
Defending the current structure of contribution limits was FEC attorney Erin Chlopak, who faced fewer questions than Dickerson from the appellate judges. Chlopak argued that the existing contribution- limit system should be easy for the court to uphold because a series of Supreme Court decisions, including the landmark 1976 case Buckley v. Valeo and other rulings, have consistently upheld the constitutionality of contribution limits.
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