Karl Rove Argues Supreme Court Campaign Finance Decision Will Strengthen Democracy

Veteran GOP political operative and Fox News contributor Karl Rove argued on Tuesday that the Supreme Court ending limits on campaign spending by political parties would help to strengthen the democratic process.

In a 6-3 ruling earlier in the morning, the court’s conservative majority sided with the National Republican Senatorial Committee legal challenge against spending limits, citing First Amendment free speech protections.

Anchor Dana Perino introduced Rove, adding that he “understands campaigns inside and out. What’s the scope and scale of this decision?”

“Well, I have one question, which is: I think this removed the limits on how much the parties could spend in coordinating with candidates. I don’t think it removed the limit on how many individuals can give to the political parties, which I think is a combined total of $300,000-some-odd thousand. So look, I’m in favor of this,” Rove said, adding:

I think this will strengthen parties. Look, money is speech. Citizens United said that labor unions had already, already grown on their corporate treasuries to influence political campaigns. And so they extended that right to go beyond the labor unions to everybody — businesses, individuals, and so forth. This created the era of super PACs.

I helped create one of the larger super PACs. Ed Gillespie and I organized American Crossroads, which became Senate Leadership Fund. We took advantage of it. But as we did, I became concerned that we were weakening parties and strengthening these independent groups, which were, by and large, run — many of them — by the consultants, for the consultants, on behalf of their favorite candidates. And a cottage industry arose. And we had to have that happen because of Citizens United.

But in the meantime, I continue to believe in strong parties. I think the country is advantaged when we have a strong national Democratic Party and a strong national Republican Party, as we did in the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, where it mattered who was the Republican Party or Democratic Party national chairman. Bob Strauss made a big difference as the chairman of the Democratic Party. Similarly, Republicans made a difference in the quality of leadership. And I think this will, by giving the parties a bigger role, over time lead to the parties being more concerned about who leads their national party, and thereby strengthen the two individual parties.

“I remember, sixteen years ago, when Barack Obama, in his State of the Union, in the well of the House, came out and had strong words of criticism about this ruling, and Samuel Alito, sitting in the front row, mouthed the words, ‘Not true.’ That’s lived ever since that time. Shannon Bream, back at the court, has a question for you, Karl. Shannon, go ahead,” added anchor Bill Hemmer.

“Well, and this may get to some of what Karl was asking about. This is from the dissent by Justice Kagan — still trying to get through this — but this part struck me,” Bream replied, adding:

She said the court rewrites the rules to allow circumvention of the contribution limit. She says the majority invalidates Congress’s restriction of coordinated expenditures, thus enabling a party to serve as an alternative checking account for a campaign. As a result, she writes, a donor will be able to give a party as much as half a million dollars, as compared to the seven thousand he could directly give to the candidate to cover the candidate’s bills, and the candidate can see it as a donation. So the court ushers back, she argues, the same opportunities for quid pro quo corruption that the contribution limits were meant to check. She goes on to say that the majority has jettisoned a rule needed to protect our democracy’s integrity.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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