MONTPELIER, Vt. — The U.S. Supreme Court was asked this week to review a Vermont law limiting campaign contributions and expenditures. If the justices decide to do so, they would be revisiting a decision that for three decades has blocked efforts to put a lid on big money in politics.

The Vermont Republican State Committee, Vermont Right-to-Life and other groups asked the Court on May 12 to overturn a ruling from a federal appeals court that largely upheld a 1998 Vermont campaign-finance law. That law limits contributions to a candidate to $200 or $400 in a two-year period, depending on the office being sought, says no one running for governor can spend more than $300,000, and sets smaller spending caps for lower-tier candidates.

Vermont's law has been tied up in court and never has gone fully into effect. Gov. James Douglas spent nearly $682,000 to get re-elected last year, and other candidates spent well over the law's caps as well.

The impact of the legal maneuvering on the 2006 election is unclear, and would depend in large part on what the high court does in Vermont Republican State Committee v. Sorrell. It is possible that last August's ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding much of the law would remain in effect.

That would reinstate the limits on campaign spending and could have a profound impact on many campaigns for state offices. For instance, the law limits political parties' contributions to candidates to $2,000 per election cycle. Both Douglas and Democrat Peter Clavelle got six-figure contributions from their national parties last year.

Races for the U.S. House and Senate would not be affected, since they are governed by federal, rather than state, campaign-finance laws.

The Vermont case is being watched closely around the country by advocates for stricter campaign- finance laws, as well as by those who argue that limiting political contributions or expenditures would violate the First Amendment's free-speech guarantee.

The high court came down squarely on the free-speech side of the argument when it decided Buckley vs. Valeo in 1976, which since then has been the law of the land on efforts to limit campaign spending.

"On the whole, the Vermont law is a direct assault on the freedom of speech of candidates for public office," said James Bopp, general counsel with the James Madison Center for Free Speech in Terre Haute, Ind., which has fought against limits on campaign spending.

"It threatens to make bit players of candidates in their own race by depriving them of the money needed to run an effective campaign," said Bopp, who is representing the state Republican Party and other critics of the law.

Brenda Wright, managing attorney for the Boston-based National Voting Rights Institute, a group that advocates limits on campaign contributions and spending, said the Vermont case could provide the Supreme Court a "historic opportunity" to consider again whether free-speech rights trump concerns about money corrupting politics and politicians spending so much time raising it that they are diverted from the public's business.

"For nearly three decades since the Buckley ruling, the nation has witnessed the threat posed to our democracy with unlimited campaign spending," Wright said. "The time has come to revisit that ruling based on the new facts and circumstances presented in the Vermont case."

Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said his and Wright's groups and other advocates of stricter campaign-finance rules hoped their opponents would be successful in getting the issue before the high court.

"We will support the Supreme Court review of this case," Burns said. "We're going to urge the Supreme Court to take this case. We believe they will affirm Vermont's plan" to limit campaign contributions and expenditures.

Many court cases have limited First Amendment rights if there is a compelling state interest that offsets what otherwise would be unlimited free expression. States can and do ban help-wanted ads from saying members of a particular ethnic group should not apply, because courts have found a compelling state interest in fighting discrimination, for example.

In a decision last August, the 2nd Circuit said Vermont had demonstrated two such state interests: the desire to limit the corrupting influence of campaign contributions over political decisions, and the desire to keep officeholders doing the work they were elected to do, rather than spending all their time trying to raise money for the next campaign.

The May 11 request to the Supreme Court asks the justices to decide that those state interests are not enough to offset the right to free speech, particularly the political speech the First Amendment was originally designed to protect.

Among key provisions of the Vermont law:

• It limits candidates for governor to spending $300,000 per campaign, candidates for lieutenant governor to $100,000 per campaign, candidates for other statewide offices to $45,000 and those running for the Legislature to lesser amounts.
• It tried to say candidates could get no more than 25% of their contributions from out of state, but both the U.S. District Court in Burlington and the 2nd Circuit knocked that provision down, saying it denied equal protection of the laws to citizens of other states.
• It limits contributions from political parties and political action committees to candidates to $2,000 per campaign. The district court struck this down as contrary to Buckley v. Valeo, but the 2nd Circuit reinstated it.