# FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate Supreme Court decision of **May 16, 2022** striking down the [[Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act]]'s restriction on repaying a candidate's personal campaign loans with funds raised after the election. [[Ted Cruz]] had lent his 2018 Senate campaign $260,000; BCRA capped post-election repayment of candidate loans at $250,000, and the Court held the cap an unconstitutional burden on political speech. Its importance on the campaign-finance map is not the loan rule but the **narrowing of the government's justification**. The Court reaffirmed that the only interest that can support a campaign-finance restriction is preventing ***quid pro quo* corruption or its appearance**, and that the risk of an officeholder feeling grateful to a donor is not enough. Together with [[McCutcheon v. FEC]] (2014), this is the doctrinal ground the Court stood on in 2026 when it overruled *Colorado II* in [[National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC]] — the "undue influence" rationale that had justified the coordinated party limits was, by then, already gone. ## See also - [[National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC]] · [[McCutcheon v. FEC]] · [[Citizens United v. FEC]] - [[How Campaign Money Moves]] · [[Campaign Finance Hub]] · [[Money as Speech]] - [[Ted Cruz]] · [[Federal Election Commission]] · [[Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act]]