A political action committee is suing to prevent enforcement of a state law limiting how much money candidates can accept, in aggregate, from PACs.
“The United States Supreme Court has made clear that aggregate limits on the number of contributions an individual can make to a campaign are unconstitutional,” said Rick Esenberg, general counsel with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which filed the federal lawsuit Monday.
The suit contends that “although it is permitted to limit the amount of a single contribution to a candidate, you can’t tell an individual that you may only choose to support so many candidates up to a particular dollar amount,” Esenberg said.
Wisconsin campaign finance laws set the limits at $15,525 for state Senate candidates and $7,763 for state Assembly candidates.
The lawsuit names several Government Accountability Board members as defendants. A spokesman for the GAB said the law was upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme court in the 1990s.