Fed. Election Comm'n v. Cruz

• Decision Date: 16 May 2022
• Docket Number: 21-12
• Citation: 142 S.Ct. 1638
• Parties: FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, Appellant v. Ted CRUZ for Senate, et al.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

142 S.Ct. 1638

FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, Appellant

v.Ted CRUZ for Senate, et al.

No. 21-12

Supreme Court of the United States.

Argued January 19, 2022

Decided May 16, 2022

Malcolm L. Stewart, Deputy Solicitor General, for appellant

Charles J. Cooper, Washington, DC, for respondents.

Brian H. Fletcher, Acting Solicitor General, Counsel of Record, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Appellant.

Chris Gober, The Gober Group PLLC, Austin, TX, Charles J. Cooper, Counsel of Record, John D. Ohlendorf, Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, Washington, DC, for Appellees.

Lisa J. Stevenson, Acting General Counsel, Kevin Deeley, Associate General Counsel, Harry J. Summers, Assistant General Counsel, Haven G. Ward, Shaina Ward, Attorneys, Federal Election Commission, Washington, DC, Elizabeth B. Prelogar, Solicitor General, Counsel of Record, Malcolm L. Stewart, Deputy Solicitor General, Vivek Suri, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Appellant.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.

In order to jumpstart a fledgling campaign or finish strong in a tight race, candidates for federal office often loan money to their campaign committees. A provision of federal law regulates the repayment of such loans. Among other things, it bars campaigns from using more than $250,000 of funds raised after election day to repay a candidate's personal loans. This limit on the use of post-election funds increases the risk that candidate loans over $250,000 will not be repaid in full, inhibiting candidates from making such loans in the first place. The question is whether this restriction violates the First Amendment rights of candidates and their campaigns to engage in political speech.

I

A

Candidates for federal office may, consistent with federal law, use various sources to fund their campaigns. A candidate may spend an unlimited amount of his own money in support of his campaign. See Buckley v. Valeo , 424 U.S. 1, 52–54, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976) (per curiam ). His campaign—a legal entity distinct from the candidate himself—may borrow an unlimited amount from third-party lenders or from the candidate himself. See 11 C.F.R. § 110.10 (2017) ; 52 U.S.C. § 30101(9)(A)(i) ; see also Buckley , 424 U.S. at 52–54, 96 S.Ct. 612. And campaigns may, of course, accept contributions directly from other organizations or from individuals, subject to monetary limitations. Individual contributions are capped at $2,900 for the primary and $2,900 for the general election. See §§ 30116(a), (c) ; 86 Fed. Reg. 7869 (2021). Campaigns may continue to receive contributions after election day, so long as those contributions go toward repaying campaign debts. See 11 C.F.R. § 110.1(b)(3)(i).

Section 304 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), 116 Stat. 98, 52 U.S.C. § 30116(j), further restricts the use of post-election funds. Under that provision, a candidate who loans money to his campaign may not be repaid more than $250,000 of such loans from contributions made to the campaign after the date of the election. Ibid. To implement that limit, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has promulgated regulations establishing three rules pertinent here: First, a campaign may repay up to $250,000 in candidate loans using contributions made "at any time before, on, or after the date of the election." 11 C.F.R. § 116.12(a). Second, to the extent the loans exceed $250,000, a campaign may use pre-election funds to repay the portion exceeding $250,000 only if the repayment occurs "within 20 days of the election." § 116.11(c)(1). And third, if more than $250,000 remains unpaid when the 20-day post-election deadline expires, the campaign must treat the portion above $250,000 as a contribution to the campaign, precluding later repayment. § 116.11(c)(2).

B

Appellee Ted Cruz represents Texas in the United States Senate. This case arises from his 2018 reelection campaign, which was, at the time, the most expensive Senate race in history. Before election day, Cruz loaned $260,000 to the other appellee here, Ted Cruz for Senate (Committee). At the end of election day, however, the Committee was in the red by approximately $340,000. App. 285. It eventually began repaying Cruz's loans, but by that time the 20-day post-election window for repaying amounts over $250,000 had closed. See 11 C.F.R. §§ 116.11(c)(1), (2). The Committee accordingly repaid Cruz only $250,000, leaving $10,000 of his personal loans unpaid.

Cruz and the Committee filed this action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that Section 304 of BCRA violates the First Amendment. They also raised challenges to the FEC's implementing regulation, 11 C.F.R. § 116.11. A three-judge panel was convened to hear the case. See BCRA § 403(a)(1), 116 Stat. 113; see also 28 U.S.C. § 2284.

The three-judge District Court granted Cruz and his Committee summary judgment on their constitutional claim, holding that the loan-repayment limitation burdens political speech without sufficient justification. 542 F.Supp.3d 1 (2021). The District Court also ordered that appellees’ challenges to the regulation, previously held in abeyance, be dismissed as moot. The Government appealed directly to this Court, as authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 1253. We postponed consideration of our jurisdiction. 594 U. S. –––– (2021).

II

The Constitution limits federal courts to deciding "Cases" and "Controversies." Art. III, § 2. Among other things, that limitation requires a plaintiff to have standing. The requisite elements of Article III standing are well established: A plaintiff must show (1) an injury in fact, (2) fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant, (3) that is likely to be redressed by the requested relief. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555, 560–561, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992).

As the Government recognizes, the Committee's present inability to repay the final $10,000 of Cruz's loans constitutes an injury in fact both to Cruz and to his Committee. See Reply Brief 8. Cruz, of course, suffers a $10,000 pocketbook harm. See Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp. , 580 U. S. 451, 464, 137 S.Ct. 973, 197 L.Ed.2d 398 (2017). And the bar on repayment injures the Committee by preventing it from discharging its obligation to repay its debt, which may inhibit that form of financing in the future. The Government maintains, however, that these injuries are not traceable to the threatened enforcement of Section 304, for two reasons: first, because the inability to repay Cruz's loans was "self-inflicted," and second, because it is the threatened enforcement of an agency regulation, not the statute itself, that causes the harm. We address each argument in turn.

A

First, the Government argues that appellees lack standing because their injuries were "self-inflicted." Brief for Appellant 20. Because appellees knowingly triggered the application of the loan-repayment limitation, the Government says, any resulting injury is in essence traceable to them , not the Government. The predicate for this argument is appellees’ stipulation in the District Court that "the sole and exclusive motivation behind Senator Cruz's actions in making the 2018 loan[s] and the [C]ommittee's actions in waiting to repay them was to establish the factual basis for this challenge." App. 325. At bottom, the Government asks us to recognize an exception to traceability for injuries that a party purposely incurs.

We have never recognized a rule of this kind under Article III. To the contrary, we have made clear that an injury resulting from the application or threatened application of an unlawful enactment remains fairly traceable to such application, even if the injury could be described in some sense as willingly incurred. See Evers v. Dwyer , 358 U.S. 202, 204, 79 S.Ct. 178, 3 L.Ed.2d 222 (1958) (per curiam ) (that the plaintiff subjected himself to discrimination "for the purpose of instituting th[e] litigation" did not defeat his standing); Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman , 455 U.S. 363, 374, 102 S.Ct. 1114, 71 L.Ed.2d 214 (1982) (a "tester" plaintiff posing as a renter for purposes of housing-discrimination litigation still suffered an injury under Article III).

The cases the Government cites do not alter our conclusion. In Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA , 568 U.S. 398, 133 S.Ct. 1138, 185 L.Ed.2d 264 (2013), for example, the plaintiffs attempted to manufacture standing by voluntarily taking costly and burdensome measures that they said were necessary to protect the confidentiality of their communications in light of the Government surveillance policy they sought to challenge. Id. , at 402, 133 S.Ct. 1138. Their problem, however, was that they could not show that they had been or were likely to be subjected to that policy in any event. Id. , at 416, 133 S.Ct. 1138. Likewise, in Pennsylvania v. New Jersey , 426 U.S. 660, 96 S.Ct. 2333, 49 L.Ed.2d 124 (1976) (per curiam ), we held that the unilateral decisions by a group of States to reimburse their residents for taxes levied by other States was not a basis to attack the legality of those taxes. Nothing in the challenged taxes required the plaintiff States to offer reimbursements; accordingly, the financial injury those States suffered was due to their own independent response to taxes levied on others. Id. , at 664, 96 S.Ct. 2333. Here, by contrast, the appellees’ injuries are directly inflicted by the FEC's threatened enforcement of the provisions they now challenge. That appellees chose to subject themselves to those provisions does not change the fact that they are subject to them, and will face genuine legal penalties if they do not comply. See 52 U.S.C. § 30109(a)(5) ; 11 C.F.R. § 111.24.

One final point bears mentioning. The Government maintains that it should not be blamed for appellees’ injuries because it provided the Committee with a legally available "alternative" that would have avoided any liability—repaying...