Litigation

Bopp: Goal is Dismantling Campaign Finance Law

By Peter Hardin

Although he won “his biggest victory” when the Supreme Court issued Citizens United, Indiana-based lawyer James Bopp Jr. (photo at right) by no means considers his work finished.

That’s according to an illuminating New York Times profile of Bopp, headlined, “A Quest to End Spending Rules for Campaigns.” Bopp told the Times:

“We had a 10-year plan to take all this down…And if we do it right, I think we can pretty well dismantle the entire regulatory regime that is called campaign finance law.”

The case on behalf of Citizens United, a conservative group, “was really Jim’s brainchild,” election law scholar Richard Hasen said, alluding to how Bopp framed it to test laws restraining corporate political spending and to get a desired result from the court. “He is a litigation machine.”

Bopp handled the case on its way to the high court, but did not argue the case there. That job was handled by former U.S. solicitor general Theodore Olson (photo at left).  The National Law Journal offers a slightly different take on the winningest lawyer in the case, writing about Olson:

“By bringing on Olson in place of veteran campaign-regulation foe James Bopp Jr., [Citizens United] aggressively ramped up the constitutional issues, making it much more likely the high court would make history in its ruling on the case.”

No matter how the credit is handed out, Bopp has decided his next step, according to the Times, will be rolling back disclosure rules. In Citizens United, the high court declared that corporations could not be barred from spending on election campaigns, while upholding disclosure rules for political expenditures. To learn more, check out Gavel Grab.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 26, 2010 (boomark / email).