Judge Allows Unlimited Fundraising During Session

The Associated Press is reporting via the Belleville News Democrat that Jim Trout’s lawsuit challenging Missouri’s new campaign finance law  (see prior post) has been partially blocked by a Judge:

A Cole County judge on Monday temporarily blocked a new law banning fundraising by lawmakers, statewide officials and candidates during the legislative session, which began last week and runs through mid-May.

Although Circuit Judge Richard Callahan’s order only addresses the fundraising ban, the law also eliminated individual contribution limits; banned cash contributions to candidates from political parties; prohibited certain people from running for office; and imposed new Ethics Commission reporting requirements on lobbyists. Callahan set a March 2 hearing for consideration of the lawsuit seeking to declare the entire law unconstitutional

In his ruling, Callahan said the Legislature did not address the concerns raised by a federal judge who struck down a similar Missouri legislative session fundraising ban in 1996 as an unconstitutional infringement on free-speech rights.

Hopefully the judge will throw out the entire new law so that we stick with reasonable contribution limits.   With a hearing just days before our St. Louis primary election is looks at though local races will not be affected by this case.  I don’t know how these things work but it would be interesting if the judge was able to rule that contributions received over the old limits had to be returned by candidates.