How did McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission further change federal campaign-finance limits after Citizens United?

While Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) focused on invalidating restrictions on political advertising by corporations and unions, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (2014) further altered the campaign-finance landscape by addressing individual contribution limits.1

In McCutcheon, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the "aggregate limits" previously established by the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). These provisions had capped the total amount of money an individual could contribute to all federal candidates, political party committees, and noncandidate political action committees combined during a two-year election cycle.213

The Court ruled that these aggregate limits violated the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of association, concluding they were not sufficiently justified by the government's interest in preventing corruption. Importantly, the ruling did not affect "base limits," which are the specific caps on how much an individual can contribute to a single candidate or committee. By removing the ceiling on the total number of recipients a donor could support, the decision allowed wealthy individuals to contribute to a significantly larger number of political entities than was previously permitted.23