Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-12_m6hn.pdf
Page Number: 39.0

12  FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N v. TED CRUZ FOR SENATE 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

11.  In  Kentucky,  two  Governors  loaned  their  campaigns
millions of dollars, “only to be repaid after the election by
contributors seeking no-bid contracts.”  J. Moore, Campaign
Finance Reform in Kentucky: The Race for Governor, 85 Ky.
L. J. 723, 746 (1997).  The scandal those transactions cre-
ated led to a new state campaign-finance law similar to Sec-
tion 304.  In upholding that statute, a court more cognizant 
than  this  one  about  how  corruption  works  explained  that
“heavily  indebted  candidates”  were  “easy  bedfellows  for 
quid  pro  quo  contributors.”  Wilkinson  v.  Jones,  876 
F. Supp. 916, 930 (WD Ky. 1995).  That is also true on the 
local level.  In San Diego, to take just one instance, three 
city council members cast critical votes benefiting lobbyists 
who had raised funds to retire their campaign debts.  See 
C. Gustafson, Lobbyists See Benefit From Three City Offi-
cials, San Diego Union-Tribune, June 13, 2009, p. A1.3 

An empirical study in the record confirms the dangers of
corruption shown in those examples.  The study first found,
based on data preceding Section 304’s enactment, that pol-
iticians  carrying  campaign  debt  were  “significantly  more
likely” than their “debt-free counterparts” to “switch their 
votes” after receiving contributions from special interests. 
A.  Ovtchinnikov  &  P.  Valta,  Debt  in  Political  Campaigns
(2020),  in  No.  1:19–cv–00908  (D  DC,  July  14,  2020),  ECF 

—————— 

3 The majority asserts without explanation that these and other similar
examples involve not quid pro quo corruption, but only contributors’ ex-
ercise  of  their  “greater  influence”  over  candidates.    Ante,  at  16.  Even 
accepting that distinction (as our caselaw does), the majority’s claim is 
hard to understand.  Here is the quid in the examples: a donation paying 
off a successful candidate’s personal loan.  And here is the quo: a govern-
ment contract, or a key vote.  However “vague” the “line between quid 
pro quo corruption and general influence,” ibid., those exchanges cross 
it.  The majority must mean that the Government has not proved beyond
a doubt that the trades in fact occurred.  But again, that is the wrong
standard given (1) the difficulty of such proof and (2) the significant risks 
of quid pro quo corruption inherent in the above fact patterns.  See supra, 
at 10–11.