Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-12_m6hn.pdf
Page Number: 36.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

9 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

candidate had before he makes a loan to his campaign, he 
has less after it: The amount of the loan is the size of the 
hole in his bank account.  So whatever he could buy with,
say, $250,000—surely a car, but that’s beside the point—he
cannot buy any longer.  Until, that is, donors pay him back. 
Then, the hole is filled, the bank account replenished, and 
the purchasing power restored.  That is a significant finan-
cial gain to the officeholder, courtesy of donors.  If they had
not stepped up, the officeholder would have been $250,000 
poorer.

The majority’s second theory fares no better.  Contribu-
tions to repay loans, the majority argues, do not really en-
rich  an  officeholder,  because  he  has,  from  the  beginning,
“expect[ed] to be repaid.”  Ante, at 20.  But the record pro-
vides  no  support  for  that  self-assured  statement.    Contra 
the majority, the Government “has recognized throughout
this litigation” not that winning candidates are usually re-
paid, but only that they are repaid more often than losing 
ones.  Ibid.; see App. 31–32, 317.1  That is no surprise—and
the  fact  is  affirmatively  unhelpful  for  the  majority’s  posi-
tion,  because  it  shows  how  post-election  donations  reflect
an expectation of payback from the recipient.  Nothing else
in the record (or outside it) is helpful to the majority either. 
The  best  empirical  study  suggests  that  a  substantial  por-
tion  of  winning  campaigns  fail  to  retire  candidate  loans, 

—————— 

1 The statement the majority quotes from a former FEC Commissioner
does not support any broader understanding of the Government’s claim.
That statement appears in a parenthetical to a citation for the Govern-
ment’s actual argument: that winning candidates “possess a greater ca-
pacity” than losing ones do to get their loans repaid.  App. 31.  And the 
statement—that “only winners” have “an easy time dealing with debt”—
means not that all or most winners do, but instead that no losers do.  Id., 
at  31–32.    The  former  Commissioner  who  made  the  remark  had  also 
served as counsel to a losing presidential campaign, and he was merely
observing how hard that campaign had found it to repay debt.  See P. 
Overby, How Will Clinton Resolve Campaign Debt? National Public Ra-
dio, May 14, 2008.