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$1 million campaign donations: Coming soon?

Progressive groups are warning that the Supreme Court may be on the verge of allowing federal candidates to collect multi-million dollar checks from donors.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, attorneys and representatives from the campaign finance watchdog groups Democracy, Public Citizen and Demos all raised the specter of candidates hosting $1 million-a-plate fundraisers in the near future if the Supreme Court strikes down a key provision of campaign finance law.

"The court will recreate the system of legalized corruption," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21. "It may well open the door to striking down all of the remaining contribution limits and taking us back to the robber-baron era."

Their concerns stem from the case McCutcheon v. FEC, which the Supreme Court is set to hear next month.

In the case, an Alabama businessman is challenging the federal government's total aggregate contribution limit to candidates — arguing that it's an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech.

Currently, the cap on donations to all federal candidates from a single donor is set at a total of about $50,000 to campaigns and about $75,000 to parties and political action committees.

That cap is separate from the contribution limits placed on donors giving to individual candidates and political parties, which are set right now at $5,200 per donor for the primary and general election combined. Parties are currently permitted to raise $32,400 from each donor.

The progressive groups and their attorneys argue that the aggregate contribution limit acts as a hard limit on the amount of funds campaigns are allowed to raise by partnering with other campaigns.

"In particular, elimination of aggregate limits would allow candidates and officeholders to use joint fundraising committees to solicit six- and seven-figure donations from single donors," the groups wrote in an amicus brief filed this summer on the case (and posted here).

In recent years, campaigns have partnered with national parties, state political parties and other groups to pool their fundraising resources.

For example: though the Obama and Romney campaigns were limited to raising about $5,000 per donor, they were able to solicit contributions of about $35,000 by partnering with the DNC and RNC.

The Obama campaign was able to partner with other state parties to ask donors for up to about $70,000 a head in some cases.

According to Wertheimer, if the total cap on donations goes away, the amount of money that a candidate will be able to ask for will soar into the millions.

"This is not simply about Mr. McCutcheon's desire to donate to a larger number of candidates," said Wertheimer. "This is about an ability of an officeholder and a party to raise mutli-million dollar contributions."

"When candidates and their parties work together to raise funds for their mutual benefit," said Scott Nelson of Public Citizen. "Eliminate those aggregate limits would result in the formation of new kinds of fundraising enterprises."

Even if the Supreme Court declines to side with McCutcheon, donors are permitted to contribute unlimited amounts to super PACs, political nonprofits and other outside groups which act independently of candidates.

UPDATE: Democracy 21's Fred Wertheimer adds that while million-dollar donations are a definite possibility, it's the view of Democracy 21 and the wider reform community that the court would have no legal basis for deciding in favor of McCutcheon. "The Supreme Court has no legal or constitutional basis for over-turning 40 years of Supreme Court decisions upholding federal contribution limits," he said.