After the Supreme Court struck down limits on aggregate campaign contributions earlier this week,
who could possibly have predicted that Republicans would respond by wanting to challenge any and all political contribution limits in their path?
Motivated by the ruling in their favor, GOP lawyers and conservative advocates are discussing whether to bring lawsuits that would seek to permit companies and labor unions to donate directly to candidates for Congress and the White House; allow the Republican and Democratic parties to accept unlimited donations; and raise the current $10,000 cap on yearly donations to state political parties. [...]
[The 1976 case of Buckley v. Valeo] struck down limits on campaign expenditures as infringing "core First Amendment rights," but upheld regulation of contributions. Because the recent plaintiffs hadn't challenged the base limits on political contributions, "we see no need in this case to revisit Buckley's distinction between contributions and expenditures," Chief Justice Roberts wrote.
Republican and conservative lawyers interpreted those remarks to mean the court would be ripe to strike down other campaign-finance restrictions. The decision "seems to crack the door open" to a legal challenge aimed at allowing political parties to raise unlimited contributions, said William McGinley, a Republican campaign-finance lawyer with the Washington law and lobbying firm Patton Boggs.
Democrats are of course trying to take advantage of the McCutcheon decision striking down limits on how much an individual can give to all candidates and parties combined over a two-year election cycle, but are not part of the effort to knock down more and more limits and allow money total and complete free rein over politics—that's a Republican fight.