By Byron Tau
At least a half-dozen major campaign-finance cases winding their way through the courts have the potential to shake up the political landscape in the vein of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling — or the more recent McCutcheon decision — forcing major changes in the way campaigns are financed and run.
They could get a sympathetic hearing from the high court as its conservative majority has been sensitive to the free-speech concerns raised by a band of activist conservative lawyers and groups that have emerged as a major legal force in the fight to deregulate campaign finance.
“If you have a court that looks pretty much like it is today, I think you’ll see continued deregulation,” said David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, which advocates for fewer restrictions on campaign spending and is involved in a number of ongoing lawsuits on campaign finance. “There are a lot of laws on the books that make no sense at all. A lot of them are going to fall.”
