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Constitutional Law Keyed to Stone
Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate
Citation:
142 S. Ct. 1638Facts
In 2018, Senator Ted Cruz ran for reelection to the United States Senate in what was, at that time, the most expensive Senate race in history. Before election day, Cruz loaned $260,000 to his campaign committee, Ted Cruz for Senate. After the election, the Committee had approximately $340,000 in debt. Under Section 304 of BCRA and its implementing regulations, the Committee could only use post-election contributions to repay up to $250,000 of candidate loans, and any amount exceeding that threshold had to be repaid within 20 days of the election using pre-election funds. Since the 20-day window had closed, the Committee repaid Cruz only $250,000, leaving $10,000 of his personal loans unpaid. Cruz and the Committee then filed suit, alleging that Section 304 violated the First Amendment by restricting political speech.
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