USA Today has this article about pending lawsuits on the constitutionality of campaign finance laws. However, the article does not mention Unity08 v Federal Election Commission, which could have an opinion any day now. The issue in that case is whether the FEC was correct or incorrect to tell Unity08 that no one may contribute more than $5,000. Unity08 was formed in 2006, for the purpose of qualifying itself as a party in as many states as possible by 2008. Then, it would have chosen a presidential candidate via an on-line presidential primary. Anyone could sign up to participate in that on-line presidential primary.

The McCain-Feingold law says that national committees (of political parties) can only receive contributions of $30,400 per year. There are 8 national committees recognized by the FEC: Democratic, Republican, Constitution, Green, Libertarian, Natural Law, Reform, Socialist. Before the Unity08 ruling, the assumption was that a new party, which didn’t yet have national committee status, could receive unlimited contributions as long as it didn’t have any connection with any particular federal candidate. But, the FEC ruled that Unity08 is a political committee (even though political committees are defined as groups to help one particular candidate) and that therefore no one could give more than $5,000. The Unity08 pending decision is of the greatest importance to anyone who cares about the ability of a new party to get started. If the FEC decision on Unity08 had been in effect in 1995, Ross Perot could not have launched the Reform Party.