On April 15, the Federal Election Commission asked U.S. District Court Robert L. Wilkins to change his mind about his March 18 ruling that said the Libertarian Party is entitled to a hearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals in its bequest lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed in 2011, complained about federal campaign laws that don’t permit a political party to receive a large bequest all at once. Judge Wilkins had said the case is strong enough that it deserves to be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Judge Wilkins had also said, “the anti-corruption interests that would be implicated by allowing the Libertarian National Committee to receive the entire bequest all at once may be minimal.”

The FEC request for rehearing says that it isn’t proper for any federal court to consider whether any particular large donation to a political party should be allowed on the grounds that the donation doesn’t appear to be needed to prevent corruption. It says if the court allows a special hearing on this one type of request, that will open the door to many more future cases in which parties will try to argue that other proposed large donations also deserve an exemption. The FEC also points out that this particular case is no longer very important, because it has been delayed so long already, by 2014 the Libertarian Party will have received the last part of the bequest in any event. The bequest was left in 2007.