Associate Dean Amar Speaks in Nationally Televised Campaign Finance Debate
Vikram Amar, Associate Dean and Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law, was a panelist in a campaign finance debate at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. The debate is being televised on PBS stations across the country during October. Video and transcripts are available on the Miller Center website.
In addition to Amar, panel members included Ann Ravel, an attorney and vice-chair for the Federal Election Commission and former chair of California's Fair Political Practices Commission; Shaun McCutcheon, a businessman and Republican activist and the plaintiff in the recent landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down federal limits on campaign contributions; and Bradley Smith, a law professor at West Virginia University and former chair of the Federal Election Commission.
A key point stressed by Amar in his opening statement and in subsequent comments was the difference between spending money for direct political expression, which is clearly subject to First Amendment protections, and contributing money to organizations or candidates, which may use such contributions for purposes only tangentially related to political expression.
"We really need to regulate contributions more, and I think the Supreme Court got it wrong in McCutcheon. And with all due respect to the Supreme Court and to Mr. McCutcheon, the vote that counts is not the 5-4 vote in the Supreme Court. The vote that counts is the vote of the American people in the long run, and that's why they need to be thinking about these kinds of issues," Amar said.
Vikram Amar, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Law with the UC Davis School of Law, is a national authority in the fields of constitutional law, civil procedure, criminal procedure, and remedies. His biweekly column for Justia.com, a leading provider of online legal information, centers on his expertise in constitutional law.