Six Supremes Put Elections up for Bid

They put their thumb on the scale for the 2026 election

By Gerald E. Scorse

Statistics suggest that our current Supreme Court justices have some of the highest IQs in America. It seems fair to conclude, then, that six of them knew exactly what they were doing when they effectively put for-sale signs on the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government—on the presidency, on the Senate, on the House of Representatives.

The deciding six were Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas. Definitely and positively, all six realized the message they were sending to candidates and their big-money organizational contributors: You can do whatever you want; the campaign spending limits of the past 55 years have become past history.

Their decision came on the last day of the Court’s term, in the case National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission. The ruling strikes down 1971 and 2001 decisions that limited how much money political parties could spend in coordination with candidates. The justices ruled that any cap on such spending violated the First Amendment’s free-speech rights.

Justice Kagan’s dissent underlined the decision’s gift to candidates. The ruling, she argued, “ushers in the same opportunities for quid pro quo corruption that the [prior] contribution limits were meant to check.”

“As a result,” she wrote, “a donor will be able to give a party as much as half a million dollars (as compared to the $7,000 he can give directly to the candidate) to cover the candidate’s bills. And the candidate can seek just such a donation.”

The public was all in for Kagan. By huge margins, Democrats and Republicans alike opposed the decision. Only 25 percent of GOPers approved, compared to 22 percent of Democrats. On every other decision this term, the approval difference between the major parties was over 30 percent.

An ecstatic Donald Trump responded in his over-the-top Truth Social style: “The Supreme Court just took restrictions off political spending! A BIG WIN FOR REPUBLICANS and…the First Amendment!”

It absolutely was a major win for Republicans. While individual Democrats are out-raising their GOP rivals heading into the midterms, the Republicans have a $600 million advantage for the kind of campaign financing just greenlighted by the Court.

As for Trump’s First Amendment “WIN,” here’s a sharply different view from Michael Waldman, president and CEO at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law: “[The] campaign finance ruling is part of the Roberts Court’s 16-year drive to destroy anti-corruption laws. From Citizens United forward, these justices have ushered in an era of massive money in politics.” The court not only overrode Congress, it went “against the wishes of the vast majority.”

Lawyer and former Congressman Colin Allred was even more scornful: “The Supreme Court term that just ended was, in my considered legal opinion, one of the worst in modern history.”

Let’s finish up by circling back to the beginning, when six injudicious justices ignored an eternal political truth. That truth was glaringly obvious to two major figures from America’s past, Thomas Paine and George Washington.

Paine made tax proposals that would have limited income to the equivalent of about $27 million in today’s dollars. He saw the limit as a necessary guardrail; for him, extreme wealth gave the rich an “overgrown influence” and was “one of the principal sources of corruption at elections.” For Paine, money and politics made for a toxic mix.

It wasn’t big money that worried George Washington, it was anything at all. Washington “was always very reluctant to accept any kind of gift because he was afraid people might interpret it as a bribe.”

Conclusion: Six smart Supremes made a supremely stupid decision.

This article first appeared at www.nydailynews.com. Gerald E. Scorse helped pass the bill requiring basis reporting for capital gains. He writes on taxes. His articles have appeared often in Progressive Charlestown.