On January 11, the U.S. Supreme Court held a conference to decide which cases to take. It released the news of which cases it did accept, immediately after the conference. One of the cases is a campaign finance case, Davis v Federal Election Commission, 07-320. The lower court had upheld the law. The issue is part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, called the “Millionaires’ Amendment.” The law says that restrictions on how much money individuals can give to federal candidates are eased, when one of the candidates in the race funds his own campaign with at least $350,000. Jack Davis was the candidate who spent a large amount of his own money. He was a New York Democratic nominee for the US House in the 26th district in 2006. He argues that he was harmed because his Republican opponent, incumbent Thomas Reynolds, was permitted to receive triple the normal amount of contributions. Also Reynolds was permitted to coordinate his campaign with the Republican Party to a degree that is normally illegal.

Davis’ most interesting argument is that since the purpose of campaign restrictions on large donations is to prevent corruption, the “Millionaires’ Amendment” itself promotes corruption, and that the law only exists to help incumbents.

The government argues that Davis doesn’t even have standing to complain, since Congressman Reynolds didn’t actually take advantage of those special legal advantages.