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Small digs, big ambitions: Bopp at work in his Terre Haute office Doug McSchooler/Bloomberg
The 2012 election is shaping up to be the most expensive ever, by a lot. Between congressional contests and the Presidential campaign, the 2008 race came in at about $5 billion. This go-round is on track to exceed $6 billion, thanks in large part to recent court decisions that relaxed limits on corporate and union spending. All that money sloshing around—much of it hard to trace to the giver—infuriates government accountability groups. But it absolutely delights the man most responsible for making it happen: James Bopp Jr.
Never heard of him? The 63-year-old proprietor of a small law firm in Terre Haute, Ind., Bopp is far from a household name. In Washington, though, he is revered by campaign fundraisers for his three-decade-long crusade to eliminate restrictions on political contributions, which Bopp, a conservative Republican, sees as a violation of free speech. It was Bopp who filed the initial Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission lawsuit that ultimately led the Supreme Court to rule, in 2010, that corporations and unions could spend unlimited amounts to support or oppose candidates as long as they didn’t give the money to the candidates themselves.
Over the years, Bopp has filed numerous lawsuits in state and federal courts seeking to knock down fundraising limits, always on the lookout for test cases that could one day end up before the justices. He filed 21 of the 31 lawsuits challenging campaign finance regulations tracked by the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center. His work cleared the way for the creation of so-called Super PACs, independent campaign fundraising groups that amass unlimited donations. These PACs are now at work raising tens of millions of dollars from labor, business, and individuals to support—or attack—Presidential candidates. Bopp’s advocacy led to the end of state restrictions on spending in judicial elections and to the repeal of state laws providing additional public funds to candidates whose opponents spend more.
His latest mission: challenging state and federal laws that bar corporations from donating directly to candidates. The way Bopp sees it, if companies can spend money to elect or defeat candidates, why shouldn’t they be allowed to donate directly to the politicians? “The only justification for contribution limits is the size of the contribution, not the contributor,” he says. The point of the First Amendment is “to ensure robust participation by citizens,” he adds. “If you want people of average means to participate, you have to protect groups,” including corporations owned by stockholders.
