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The Seventh Amendment: The Key to Reversing Buckley v. Valeo


William P. Kreml

Wed, 10/31/2007

In The Seventh Amendment: The Key to Reversing Buckley v. Valeo, University of South Carolina – Columbia, Department of Political Science Distinguished Professor Emeritus William P. Kreml, argues that the jurisprudence invalidating campaign finance legislation is inconsistent with the purpose of the Bill of Rights and, in particular, the Seventh Amendment. Professor Kreml discusses the tension between the two sets of Founders, the federalists and the anti-federalists, and likewise between the original seven articles of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Professor Kreml notes that the Constitution not only reflects differing views on the proper interaction between government and citizens, but also the relationship between debtors and creditors—a concern that underlies the Seventh Amendment, which protected debtor-friendly judgments by juries from court review. Professor Kreml argues that our campaign finance system today implicates these same concerns, as large campaign contributions are similar to unencumbered contracts of the eighteenth century and undermine the democracy that the Bill of Rights was enacted to protect, and therefore the regulation of such contributions is constitutional.

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Kreml Issue Brief.pdf212.52 KB