Wall Street is one of the biggest sources of fund­ing for pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns, and many of the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s poten­tial 2016 con­tenders are gov­er­nors, from Chris Christie of New Jer­sey and Rick Per­ry of Texas to Bob­by Jin­dal of Louisiana and Scott Walk­er of Wis­con­sin. And so, last week, the GOP filed a fed­er­al law­suit aimed at over­turn­ing the pay-to-play law that bars those gov­er­nors from rais­ing cam­paign mon­ey from Wall Street exec­u­tives who man­age their states’ pen­sion funds.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulators originally passed the rule to make sure retirees' money wasn't being handed out based on politicians' desire to pay back their campaign donors.

In the case, New York and Ten­nessee’s Repub­li­can par­ties are rep­re­sent­ed by two for­mer Bush admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials, one of whose firms just won the Supreme Court case inval­i­dat­ing cam­paign con­tri­bu­tion lim­its on large donors. In their com­plaint, the par­ties argue that peo­ple man­ag­ing state pen­sion mon­ey have a First Amend­ment right to make large dona­tions to state offi­cials who award those lucra­tive mon­ey man­age­ment contracts.

With the $3 tril­lion pub­lic pen­sion sys­tem con­trolled by elect­ed offi­cials now gen­er­at­ing bil­lions of dol­lars worth of annu­al man­age­ment fees for Wall Street, Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion (SEC) reg­u­la­tors orig­i­nal­ly passed the rule to make sure retirees’ mon­ey was­n’t being hand­ed out based on politi­cians’ desire to pay back their cam­paign donors.

​“Elect­ed offi­cials who allow polit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions to play a role in the man­age­ment of these assets and who use these assets to reward con­trib­u­tors vio­late the pub­lic trust,” says the pre­am­ble of the rule, which restricts not only cam­paign dona­tions direct­ly to state offi­cials, but also con­tri­bu­tions to polit­i­cal parties.

In the com­plaint aim­ing to over­turn that rule, the GOP plain­tiffs argue that the SEC does not have the cam­paign finance exper­tise to prop­er­ly enforce the rule. The com­plaint fur­ther argues that the rule itself cre­ates an ​“imper­mis­si­ble choice” between ​“exer­cis­ing a First Amend­ment right and retain­ing the abil­i­ty to engage in pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties.” The exist­ing rule could lim­it gov­er­nors’ abil­i­ty to raise mon­ey from Wall Street in any pres­i­den­tial race.

In an inter­view with Bloomberg Busi­ness­week, a spokesman for one of the Repub­li­can plain­tiffs sug­gest­ed that in order to com­pete for cam­paign resources, his par­ty’s elect­ed offi­cials need to be able to raise mon­ey from the Wall Street man­agers who receive con­tracts from those officials.

​“We see (the cur­rent SEC rule) as some­thing that has been a great detri­ment to our abil­i­ty to help out can­di­dates,” said Jason Wein­garten of the Repub­li­can Par­ty of New York — the state whose pay-to-play pen­sion scan­dal in 2010 orig­i­nal­ly prompt­ed the SEC rule.

The suit comes only a few weeks after the SEC issued its first fines under the rule — against a firm whose exec­u­tives made cam­paign dona­tions to Penn­syl­va­nia Gov. Tom Cor­bett, a Repub­li­can, and Philadel­phia May­or Michael Nut­ter, a Demo­c­rat. The com­pa­ny in ques­tion was man­ag­ing Penn­syl­va­nia and Philadel­phia pen­sion mon­ey. In a state­ment on that case, the SEC promised more enforce­ment of the pay-to-play rule in the future.

​“We will use all avail­able enforce­ment tools to ensure that pub­lic pen­sion funds are pro­tect­ed from any poten­tial cor­rupt­ing influ­ences,” said Andrew Ceres­ney, direc­tor of the SEC Enforce­ment Divi­sion. ​“As we have done with bro­ker-deal­ers, we will hold invest­ment advis­ers strict­ly liable for pay-to-play violations.”

The GOP law­suit aims to stop that promise from becom­ing a real­i­ty. In pred­i­cat­ing that suit on a First Amend­ment argu­ment, those Repub­li­cans are for­ward­ing a dis­turb­ing legal the­o­ry: Essen­tial­ly, they are argu­ing that Wall Street has a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to influ­ence politi­cians and the invest­ment deci­sions those politi­cians make on behalf of pensioners.

If that the­o­ry is upheld by the courts, it will no doubt help Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates raise lots of finan­cial-indus­try cash — but it could also mean that pub­lic pen­sion con­tracts will now be for sale to the high­est bidder.