On February 19, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted one campaign finance case, and took no action on whether to hear another one. The accepted case is McCutcheon v FEC, 12-536. The lower court had upheld federal limits on how much money an individual may donate in any two-year period to all federal candidates combined. This is not a case about how much an individual may contribute to any one particular federal candidate, but a case about the total amount of money an individual may give to any and all candidates.

The case in which the Court deferred a decision is Danielczyk v U.S., 12-579, over the federal law that makes it illegal for a corporation to donate to a candidate for federal office. The lower court had upheld the law.

McCutcheon v FEC will not be argued until the U.S. Supreme Court term that begins in October 2013.

Also on February 19, the Court refused to grant a stay in Noonan v Bowen, 12A606, in which the former California state chair of the American Independent Party had argued that President Obama doesn’t meet the constitutional qualifications.

It also refused to hear LaVergne v Blank, 12-778, over whether the Constitution requires that the size of the U.S. House be substantially increased, and whether or not a “proto-First Amendment” actually passed in 1792, requiring one U.S. House seat for each 50,000 residents.

This article in CapitalNewYork analyzes one of the biggest mysteries of the National Popular Vote Plan movement…why the plan has never passed in New York state. The plan has passed in the State Senate in New York (in a previous legislative session) so the conventional wisdom would predict that it would also pass in the Assembly, where Democrats have a huge majority over Republicans. But because the Democratic Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and the Speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, don’t seem to care about the bill, so far it has not passed the Assembly.