BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. Supreme Court has made a ruling relevant to political campaigns run here in the U.S. Live from Washington, here is Charles Bierbauer with more on this. Charles, what have they said?</s>CHARLES BIERBAUER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they have said that campaign finance limits, in this particular case coming in the state of Missouri, are indeed constitutional. This falls in line with an earlier ruling from the Supreme Court dealing with federal campaign finance limits, a famous ruling known as Buckley v. Valeo, certainly well known to every politician, which said that it is OK to put a limit on contributions, it's a thousand dollars from individuals to candidates, but not OK to put a limit on spending by the candidates. And what has happened in the Missouri case is that the Supreme Court has reversed a ruling in the lower court to say that Missouri's limit on statewide campaigns is, indeed, constitutional, that Missouri had shown there was a reasonable cause to be concerned about corruption in politics, and that placing the limit imposed no restriction on free speech. The significance of this is, of course, that this ruling can now be applied to similar laws which may exist across the country or to dissimilar laws to state that the Supreme Court has found that putting some kind of a ceiling on contributions, and in Missouri's case it is index to keep up with inflation, so it increases marginally each year, is an OK, it is permissible. It is not a infringement on free speech. And that is what the justices have ruled by a six to three count. Charles Bierbauer, CNN, live in Washington.</s>HEMMER: All right, Charles, thank you.
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Missouri Campaign Finance Limits Constitutional