The Supreme Court has just released a ruling which, a the moment, benefits but a single individual, Ted Cruz. It has handed him over a half million dollars, plus interest. The Court ruled that political candidates can now loan themselves whatever that need to win, charge the campaign interest, and then after the election, use campaign contributions to pay the money back, including any accrued interest. The 'Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002' (AKA McCain-Feingold) limited this practice to $250,000 and required that they do so within 20-days after the election (to limit the amount of interest that could have accrued). Well, Ted Cruz loaned his 2018 Senate campaign $260,000, $10,000 over the limit, and then waited a couple of years before his campaign repaid the loan. He did this with the intention of creating a case that would eventually make it to the Supreme Court where his lawyers could argue that this violated his free speech rights, which is exactly what the court did in their 6-3 decision. Note that this only applied to Cruz since no other candidate has tried to recoup more than the McCain-Feingold limit, but I suspect that this will open the door for future well-healed candidates to self-fund their campaigns knowing that they can now get all their money back (plus interest) from future donors. And the reason that Cruz is getting back an additional half a million is because of a 2012 loan for another $545,000, which he can now recoup (plus interest) thanks to the Court's latest ruling.
OCU
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