Texas Supreme Court rejects Tea Party challenge to campaign finance laws
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday upheld the state’s ban on direct corporate campaign contributions, denying a challenge from a Tea Party group that called it unconstitutional.
In the unanimous opinion, Texas’ highest civil court also upheld state requirements that campaigns report contributions and expenditures, and ruled that private groups can sue over alleged violations.
The long-running case highlighted “the tension between the warp and weft” of First Amendment rights and state powers to regulate elections, Justice Eva Guzman wrote in her majority opinion.
In 2010, the Texas Democratic Party sued Houston-based King Street Patriots, accusing the Tea Party-backed group that trained poll watchers of “1960’s style” intimidation during voting. Democrats called the group a “sham domestic nonprofit corporation” used to funnel support to Republican candidates, and alleged the group violated state campaign finance laws by illegally accepting and spending political contributions that it failed to disclose.
Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/06/30/texas-supreme-court-upholds-state-limits-corporate-campaign-contributi/
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