John,

We’re writing to you with a MAJOR update on our case to end super PACs: Stanford Law Professor and Supreme Court Specialist Jeffrey Fisher has joined our legal team in Lieu v. FEC. We plan to file this spring a petition seeking Supreme Court review of this case.

Fisher, a Co-Director of Stanford Law School’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, is among the nation’s leading experts on U.S. Supreme Court practice. He has argued over three dozen cases before the Court, on issues ranging from criminal procedure to maritime law to civil and human rights. Before joining the Stanford faculty, he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Lieu v. FEC directly challenges the 2010 D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in SpeechNow v. FEC. That ruling reasoned that the federal law limiting contributions to political action committees did not apply to those making only “independent expenditures,” thereby creating super PACs.

The Supreme Court has yet to review the SpeechNow ruling, and it has now had a decade to witness how unlimited donations to super PACs have undermined limits on campaign contributions to candidates. Big money interests now use super PACs to circumvent campaign contribution limits designed to prevent corruption and the appearance of corruption in our electoral process.

Our case in Lieu v. FEC will give the Supreme Court, for the first time, the opportunity to review the SpeechNow ruling and its detrimental impact on our democracy.

This is the next big step in our fight to challenge big money in our politics and defend our democracy.

In solidarity,

Free Speech For People