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Court upholds ban on federal contractor donations

A three-quarters-of-a-century-old ban on government contractors donating money to political campaigns was upheld by a key federal appeals court Tuesday.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Chief Judge Merrick Garland wrote the court’s opinion, which said that the rule banning federal contractors' contributions to political candidates, committees and parties did not violate the plaintiffs' freedom of speech or equal protection rights.

Citing various campaign finance cases from recent years, including the landmark Citizens United decision from 2010, Garland wrote that the threat of quid pro quo corruption from such expenditures in federal elections, even though direct evidence doesn’t exist since they have been banned since 1940, warranted upholding the law.

The plaintiffs in the case were two former U.S. Agency for International Development employees and a law professor hired by a federal government conference to write a report about science and regulation. All three of them were barred from making contributions during the 2012 federal election cycle, and the three sued the Federal Election Commission in October 2011.

They framed their suit to apply only to individual contractors and not to corporations or other organizations.

The unanimous ruling delivered Tuesday came from the D.C. Circuit's full 11-judge bench, known as the en banc court.