Supreme Court skeptical of limits on federal campaign contributions The limit currently is set at $48,600 per two-year election cycle. Roberts noted that meant an individual could give the maximum amount allowed by law to only nine candidates and not to a 10th. That could impinge on "something we've recognized as a significant right," Roberts said. The chief justice seemed to be looking for a way for the court to lift the aggregate ban on candidate contributions but keep a separate restriction on the amount given to political parties and committees. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. said that lifting the limits in the way proposed by Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee would allow an individual to contribute more than $3.5 million, rather than the current limit of $123,000. In recent years, the court's conservatives have consistently struck down campaign finance restrictions. Most dramatically, the majority in 2010 wiped out the ban on corporate and union election spending in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. At the heart of the current case is the framework created by the court's seminal 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, which upheld limits on campaign contributions that Congress put in place two years earlier in response to the Watergate scandal. That ruling drew a distinction between contributions, which the court said could be limited to prevent corruption or the appearance of corruption, and expenditures, which the court determined were a form of direct personal expression. That decision led to today's lopsided campaign system, in which donors can give a federal candidate only $2,600 per election, but can donate endless sums to super PACs, which must spend their money independently of candidates and parties. On Tuesday, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the more than $3.5 million figure mentioned by Verrilli and advanced by liberal justices was based on "wild hypotheticals" and would require a level of coordination either unlikely or illegal. Justice Antonin Scalia said even that figure is not so impressive: "I don't think $3.5 million is a heck of a lot of money" compared with the billions of dollars spent on federal campaigns. But Justice Elena Kagan said that if congressional leaders are allowed to solicit such contributions, those who can afford to pay will receive "a very, very special place at the table." Justice Stephen G. Breyer agreed with the challengers that limiting contributions has a First Amendment cost to a small segment of the population but that it may be reasonable to convince Americans unable to spend such money that they still had a voice in politics. A lawyer for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told the court that Buckley's distinction between contributions and expenditures should be overruled. But the justices spent little time debating whether they should throw out all restrictions on contributions. The case is McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission .