Professor Douglas Kmiec was approved as the new ambassador to Malta at a US Senate hearing held on Tuesday. Other new appointees of the Obama administration were confirmed during the same hearing.

During and after the US presidential campaign, Professor Kmiec was very much in the news especially since he, as a known Republican, openly supported Obama’s candidacy. The new ambassador is a firm believer in the right for life, but his support for Obama brought him into public controversy because of Obama’s support for the pro-choice lobby.

Last week, Prof. Kmiec found himself in a rather different controversy, this time more related to his work as the Goldstein and Pepperdine professor of constitutional law: campaign contribution limits. Interestingly, campaign contribution limits was also a matter of public discussion following the European Parliament election in Malta.

On Saturday he took part in a vibrant panel discussion at the ABA Annual Meeting about the past and future Supreme Court.

Looking ahead, the high court has slated a potentially landmark campaign finance case for reargument this September. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, conservative activists produced a documentary that questioned whether “Hillary Clinton was the Antichrist or merely evil,” said moderator Edward Adams, editor and publisher of the ABA Journal.

CU was ready to pay more than $1 million to a cable consortium to air the anti-Hillary documentary on a video-on-demand channel during the presidential campaign. The court must decide whether such expenditures are limited by campaign contribution restrictions.

President Barack Obama has nominated Kmiec to be ambassador to Malta, so Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may soon be his boss. He thought the court might “use the case as a vehicle for pushing back campaign contribution limits.”

Prof. Kmiec anticipates a lively debate over an array of crucial questions, such as whether wealthy individuals should be restricted from spending on their own campaigns.