By Emily Cadei, CQ Staff

The Supreme Court’s decision Thursday striking down the so-called “millionaires amendment” is not expected to have much of an impact on federal elections, although it could force a handful of this year’s congressional candidates to rethink their game plans.

The Court ruled 5-4 that a provision in the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (PL 107-155), designed to help underfunded candidates compete against self-funded opponents, was unconstitutional because it restricted free speech by creating extra disclosure burdens on rich candidates. The decision also rejected the provision’s rationale for raising the contribution limits of those running against wealthy candidates. The court noted that trying to provide level “electoral opportunities” for candidates was not a legal foundation for campaign finance regulations.

The immediate impact of the decision is that self-funded candidates who exceed the provision’s cap of $350,000 will no longer have to file disclosure statements with the Federal Election Commission each time they give money to their own campaigns. And their opponents will no longer have the benefit of accepting individual donations at triple the regular contribution limit — $6,900 rather than $2,300.

“The Court decision made it crystal clear that all aspects of the amendment are invalid and unenforceable,” said Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center, a pro-campaign finance reform group.

Still, said Ryan, the decision affects such a “discreet and compartmentalized portion of the law” that’s it’s not expected to have “a lot of overflow effects.”

One immediate impact, though, was a renewal Thursday afternoon of e-mail and Web site fundraising appeals among candidates facing self-funded opponents in House races this year.

Paul Gage, campaign manager for Democrat Kurt Schrader, who is running against Republican Mike Erickson in the race for Oregon’s 5th District House seat, said his candidate would likely have to put out a round of appeals as well to new donors “to be competitive.” He said the Schrader campaign had planned on Erickson blowing by the $350,000 millionaire’s cap this fall, which would have allowed Schrader’s present donors to triple their maximum donations.

As of Thursday, only 25 House candidates had filed millionaire amendment disclosure forms with the FEC. More than half of them lost their primaries, despite throwing their own money into the campaigns. And history shows, according to Boston College political science professor Jennifer Steen, that a candidate’s ability to bankroll a campaign rarely results in a victory.

“In 2002 and 2004, what I concluded was that the millionaires amendment made very little difference, if any, in  . . .  pretty much all elections,” Steen said.

A CQ Politics analysis of candidates who triggered the amendment in 2004 and 2006 also found that most lost their races.

Opponents of campaign finance restrictions have also used similar studies to lobby for even fewer restrictions on campaign finance laws.

Brad Smith, chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics, issued a statement commending the court for rejecting the claim “that government can level the playing field between candidates.”

“Such a concept is wholly foreign to the First Amendment. Congress is not allowed to tinker with people’s speech rights because it thinks some people are speaking too much, or others not enough,” he said.