On March 24, U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Wilkins granted the Libertarian Party’s request for a 3-judge court in Libertarian National Committee v Federal Election Commission. This is the case which challenges the McCain-Feingold limit on individuals giving more than $30,800 to a national committee of a political party, in the special context of bequests from deceased donors.

The McCain-Feingold law provides that constitutional challenges to any part of the law should be handled by a 3-judge court, unless the original judge who gets the case thinks it is utterly without merit. The case arose when Tennessee resident Raymond Burrington died in 2007, leaving $217,734 to the Libertarian National Committee. The law won’t permit the party to receive this money now. Instead the law and regulations require that the money sit in a bank account, and the party can only withdraw $30,800 per year from the account. Before the McCain-Feingold law passed, it was legal for any individual to give an unlimited amount of money to a national committee of a political party.