1. Home
  2. |Insights
  3. |Ban on Contractor Political Contributions Upheld

Ban on Contractor Political Contributions Upheld

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 07.13.15

In Wagner v. FEC (July 7, 2015), the D.C. Circuit upheld the seventy-five-year-old ban on political donations by individual contractors to federal candidates and political parties. Despite the First Amendment and equal protection arguments the plaintiffs raised, the court held that the compelling interests that support the contribution ban – protection against quid pro quo corruption and defense of merit-based public administration – are "neither theoretical nor antiquated, but rather are grounded in unhappy experience stretching to the present day."


Contacts

Insights

Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.06.25

Executive Branch Focus on Federally Funded Inventions

In recent months the executive branch has indicated a willingness to assert control over intellectual property funded by federal research dollars in novel ways. This could potentially include leveraging its march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act....