THE STATE’S HIGHEST COURT decided on Tuesday not to rule on whether limits can be placed on individual campaign contributions to political action committees, putting those who favor limits in a difficult position.

The Supreme Judicial Court considered an initiative petition proposed in 2022 that would place a $5,000-per-year cap on contributions from individuals to independent expenditure PACs, also known as super PACs. Then-Attorney General Maura Healey decided in September not to certify the measure for the ballot, concluding it likely violated federal and state free speech protections.

In a brisk 17-page decision published Tuesday, Justice Scott L. Kafker wrote that the ballot proponents’ failure to collect signatures during the 2022 cycle while the high court considered the case means the issue is no longer a live one. Though the court could have decided to take up the question anyway, it decided not to “unnecessarily” decide such a thorny constitutional question without a timely case in front of them.

“If we were to decide this now moot question,” Kafker wrote, the court would have to interpret federal free speech protections that establish the floor for state constitutional protections, “deciding unnecessarily a question best left to the Federal judiciary.”

The decision dealt with a challenge brought by two groups of ballot proponents, consolidated into one case. Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School and founder of the nonprofit Equal Citizen, and Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech For People, argued before the court that because they filed petitions with the attorney general in August 2022, there is a general two-year window during which they could start the signature gathering process or delay a year while still leaving time to make the November 2024 ballot. 

Further, they said, the attorney general was incorrect to toss the measure for violating political speech rights because the question seeks to regulate contributions rather than expenditures, which they argue are not protected in the same way by Citizens United and other cases finding that political spending constitutes protected political speech. The influence of super PACs on elections is profound, they argued, because the organizations can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money from individuals, unions, and corporations, as long as there is no coordination between the PAC and campaigns. The SJC case focused on individual donations.

In oral arguments earlier this year, justices mulled wading into the free speech morass if the timeline allowed. 

“The problem is it’s not really moot,” said Kafker at the time. “I get that we shouldn’t be messing around with theoretical constitutional issues, and that may be a reason why we shouldn’t decide this case, but it meets the language of the constitutional provision… it meets the requirements and it’s a live issue if they can actually get the signatures for it.”

The attorney general’s office argued that there is a narrow window of time during which the proponents should have collected signatures, and they chose not to submit any signatures by December 2022.

After a close reading of the statute that controls the ballot petition cycle, the justices ultimately agreed with the attorney general’s interpretation. Fixed time points throughout the cycle, rather than an open-ended two-year period, “provides for a timely and efficient government review for proposals that demonstrate sufficient public support,” Kafker wrote. “Stale or outdated interpretations of law by the Attorney General and unnecessary decisions by this court are thereby avoided.”

Lessig objected to the court’s logic in a statement that condemned the heavy burden placed on the petitioners. 

“Because of the Court’s ruling, the only way to challenge a wrongful refusal to certify a petition is first to gather signatures supporting the petition,” Lessig wrote. The need to collect signatures while under the shadow of a certification denial is “ in effect, a million-dollar filing fee, not required by the Constitution, and unprecedented in Massachusetts law. In no other context does the law impose such a burden on a challenge to the legal determination of an executive officer. It makes no sense to impose that burden in the context of the Initiative Process.”

Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office, which defended the certification denial before the court in February, declined to comment on the SJC ruling. 

The conservative Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance Foundation, which supported the attorney general’s refusal to certify, cheered the decision.

“The proponent’s goal here is to protect elected officials in power by limiting the ability for the public to speak up,” said Paul Craney, a spokesman for the foundation. “This was an attempt by an activist professor and several activist organizations to subvert our rights, but the Fiscal Alliance Foundation was successful in overcoming their efforts.”

The SJC decision comes one day before the Joint Committee on Election Laws is set to consider a bill that would impose the same contribution limitations. 

An individual may contribute to super PACs, the bill filed by Representative Michael Day of Stoneham allows, so long as the annual contributions stay under $5,000 a year. It’s unclear what impact the court’s decision not to take a stance on the issue will have on the bill’s future.

The election laws committee meets in-person and virtually on Wednesday at 10 a.m., with Day’s bill on the agenda.