Shaun McCutcheon won his case yesterday . Mitch McConnell did not. While a narrow majority of Supreme Court justices ruled to do away with limits on how much an individual can donate overall to political campaigns and committees every two years, the Senate Minority Leader’s wish to toss all limits on contributions was not part of the deal. And, as it turns out, on the same day that the Court issued its decision, the Federal Election Commission sent McConnell’s campaign a warning that at least 19 donors had violated the limits on how much an individual can contribute to a single candidate.

According to the FEC’s letter to McConnell’s campaign committee yesterday, there appear to be 17 individuals who have exceeded the per-candidate, per-election limits in one way or another.

This isn’t the first time the FEC has found donors to McConnell’s campaign violating the caps. In December, the FEC sent a very similar letter to the Kentucky Republican’s campaign, listing 12 individuals who appeared to have given more than the law allows. At the time, a McConnell campaign spokesman said it was the result of a “ technical glitch .” In a formal reply to the agency, the campaign reported having amended its October quarterly filing and fixed the problems by either refunding money to the donors or restating what the donations were intended for.

According to that reply, in some of the instances where a donor gave more than the $2,600 allowed for either the primary or general election race, a portion of the money was actually intended to be for the other race. So, for example, according to the FEC’s December letter, Andre Duggin, a philanthropist and CEO of an insurance company, gave the McConnell campaign $2,500 in 2011, and then in 2013 gave another $200, exceeding the $2,600 limit. The campaign’s response was to reassign half of the $200 given in 2013 to the general election contest, not the primary. In other instances, money was simply returned.

A total of $1,600 was subsequently refunded to two donors, the McConnell campaign told the FEC.

Allison Moore, a spokesperson for the McConnell campaign, did not reply to a request for comment from the OpenSecrets Blog. The campaign has until May 7 to make a formal reply.

Yesterday’s letter to the McConnell campaign is below:

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&lt;a href=”http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1102413/2014-04-02-fectomcconnellcampaign.pdf”&gt;2014-04-02-FECToMcConnellCampaign (PDF)&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href=”http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1102413/2014-04-02-fectomcconnellcampaign.txt”&gt;2014-04-02-FECToMcConnellCampaign (Text)&lt;/a&gt;

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Images: An artist’s rendering of Sen. Mitch McConnell listening to his attorney make his argument in the McCutcheon case before the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Dana Verkouteren)



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