Noah Feldman, Columnist

A Loss for Citizens United. And for Democrats.

Alabama law that restricts campaign donations is upheld, at a cost to a PAC helping black candidates.

September 29, 2016 at 7:30 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

One for this account, one for the other.
Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

A federal appeals court this week upheld an Alabama law that bans political action committees from making donations to other political action committees. That should be good news for Democrats, who generally oppose the Citizens United decision and the flood of political spending it released. But the twist is that the law was devised to interfere with the work of the Alabama Democratic Conference, and it was the losing party in the lawsuit.

The ADC was founded more than 50 years ago with the aim of organizing black voters and supporting black candidates. It’s the state’s largest grass-roots political organization, raising money and spending it on behalf of Democrats throughout the state. The ADC has traditionally gotten donations from both private individuals and other political action committees.