High court to hear campaign finance test

WASHINGTON, April 21 (UPI) -- The U.S.Supreme court will hear arguments Tuesday on a challenge to the so-called "Millionaires Amendment," lawyers said.

Jack Davis, an industrial ceramics mogul who is running for a congressional seat in western New York, says the amendment to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance act is skewed.

Congress inserted the amendment, Section 319, into the McCain-Feingold Act to counter a 1976 Supreme Court decision that said wealthy candidates could spend whatever they wanted on their own campaigns.

Section 319 restricts the amount of contributions available to self-financed candidates.

Davis' legal team will argue Section 319 discriminates against wealthy candidates.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held Davis' challenge "fails at the outset" because Section 319 "places no restriction on a candidate's ability to spend unlimited amounts of his personal wealth to communicate his message to voters, nor does it reduce the amount of money the candidate is able to raise from contributors," The Washington Post said Monday.

Solicitor General Paul Clement, who argues on behalf of the FEC and Congress, wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court that Section 319 is a "modest and constitutionally appropriate attempt to counteract the perception that a candidate who is wealthy enough can buy a seat in Congress."