FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION v. NATIONAL CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE ET AL.
No. 83-1032
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 28, 1984—Decided March 18, 1985*
470 U.S. 480
*Together with No. 83-1122, Democratic Party of the United States et al. v. National Conservative Political Action Committee et al., also on appeal from the same court.
Charles N. Steele argued the cause for appellant in No. 83-1032. With him on the briefs were Richard B. Bader, Miriam Aguiar, and Jonathan A. Bernstein. Steven B. Feirson argued the cause for appellants in No. 83-1122. With him on the briefs were John M. Coleman and Anthony S. Harrington.
Robert R. Sparks, Jr., argued the cause for appellees in both cases. With him on the brief was J. Curtis Herge.†
JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.‡
The Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act (Fund Act),
The present litigation began in May 1983 when the Democratic Party, the DNC, and Edward Mezvinsky, Chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee, in his individual capacity as a citizen eligible to vote for President of the United States¹ (collectively, the Democrats), filed suit against NCPAC and FCM (the PACs), who had announced their intention to spend large sums of money to help bring about the reelection of President Ronald Reagan in 1984. Their amended complaint sought a declaration that
In June 1983, the FEC brought a separate action against the same defendants seeking identical declaratory relief. It was referred to the same three-judge District Court, which consolidated the two cases for all purposes. The parties submitted 201 stipulations and three books of exhibits as
†Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Civil Liberties Union by Philip A. Lacovara, Ronald A. Stern, Charles S. Sims, and Arthur B. Spitzer; for the Gulf & Great Plains Legal Foundation et al. by Wilkes C. Robinson; and for the National Congressional Club by Brice M. Clagett and John R. Bolton.
Roger M. Witten, William T. Lake, and Archibald Cox filed a brief for Common Cause as amicus curiae.
‡JUSTICE BRENNAN joins only Part II of this opinion.
¹Mezvinsky did not pursue an appeal in this Court, though his name was inadvertently included in the notice of appeal filed by the Democratic Party and the DNC.
I
In their respective suits, the Democrats and the FEC relied upon
“The [FEC], the national committee of any political party, and individuals eligible to vote for President are authorized to institute such actions, including actions for declaratory judgment or injunctive relief, as may be appropriate to implement or con[s]true any provisions of [the Fund Act].”
Section 9011(b)(2) confers subject-matter jurisdiction on the district courts of the United States, sitting in panels of three judges in accordance with
We do not doubt, nor do any of the parties in these cases challenge, the standing of the FEC, which is specifically identified in
Despite the identity of the relief requested by the FEC and the Democrats, the FEC asks this Court to reverse the District Court‘s holding that the Democrats also have standing under
Though McCulloch, supra, is authority on its somewhat different facts for finessing a decision as to questions of “jurisdiction” in one of two companion cases raising the same substantive issues, we decline to follow that course here. The statutory standing issue is squarely presented by the Democrats’ appeal, and if the FEC is correct in its assertion as to lack of standing, the decision of the District Court could seriously interfere with the agency‘s exclusive jurisdiction to
The plain language of the Fund Act and the FECA suggests quite emphatically that the Democrats do not have standing to bring a private action against another private party. In addition to the FEC,
This scheme seems simple enough. Title
Consistent with this statutory scheme an “appropriate” role for private parties under
This interpretation makes a good deal of sense. Suits to construe the Fund Act and to bring about implementation of the Act—presumably implementation by the FEC, which has exclusive authority to administer and enforce the Act—raise issues that are likely to be of great importance and in Congress’ judgment justify a three-judge court, expedited review, and direct appeal to this Court. Ordinary enforcement actions to obtain compliance with the terms of the Act after they have been construed and implemented would not justify such extraordinary procedures. Moreover, it seems highly dubious that Congress intended every one of the millions of eligible voters in this country to have the power to
Consistent with FEC‘s supervisory role, Congress provided an administrative complaint procedure in
If the FEC dismissed the complaint or failed to act on it in 120 days, the Democrats could petition the District Court for the District of Columbia under
Alternatively, the DNC or an individual voter could sue the FEC under
We do not necessarily reject the District Court‘s conclusion that the legislative history of the successive amendments to
In view of our conclusion that the Democrats lack standing under the statute, there is no need to reach the
II
NCPAC is a nonprofit, nonmembership corporation formed under the District of Columbia Nonprofit Corporation Act in August 1975 and registered with the FEC as a political committee. Its primary purpose is to attempt to influence directly or indirectly the election or defeat of candidates for federal, state, and local offices by making contributions and by making its own expenditures. It is governed by a three-member board of directors which is elected annually by the existing board. The board‘s chairman and the other two members make all decisions concerning which candidates to support or oppose, the strategy and methods to employ, and the amounts of money to spend. Its contributors have no role in these decisions. It raises money by general and specific direct mail solicitations. It does not maintain separate accounts for the receipts from its general and specific solicitations, nor is it required by law to do so.
FCM is incorporated under the laws of Virginia and is registered with the FEC as a multicandidate political committee. In all material respects it is identical to NCPAC.
Both NCPAC and FCM are self-described ideological organizations with a conservative political philosophy. They solicited funds in support of President Reagan‘s 1980 campaign, and they spent money on such means as radio and television advertisements to encourage voters to elect him President. On the record before us, these expenditures were “independent” in that they were not made at the request of or in coordination with the official Reagan election campaign committee or any of its agents. Indeed, there are indications that the efforts of these organizations were at times viewed with disfavor by the official campaign as counterproductive to its chosen strategy. NCPAC and FCM expressed their intention to conduct similar activities in support of President
As noted above, both the Fund Act and FECA play a part in regulating Presidential campaigns. The Fund Act comes into play only if a candidate chooses to accept public funding of his general election campaign, and it covers only the period between the nominating convention and 30 days after the general election. In contrast, FECA applies to all Presidential campaigns, as well as other federal elections, regardless of whether publicly or privately funded. Important provisions of these Acts have already been reviewed by this Court in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976). Generally, in that case we upheld as constitutional the limitations on contributions to candidates and struck down as unconstitutional limitations on independent expenditures.³
In these cases we consider provisions of the Fund Act that make it a criminal offense for political committees such as NCPAC and FCM to make independent expenditures in support of a candidate who has elected to accept public financing. Specifically,
“(1)... it shall be unlawful for any political committee which is not an authorized committee with respect to the eligible candidates of a political party for President and Vice President in a presidential election knowingly and willfully to incur expenditures to further the election of such candidates, which would constitute qualified campaign expenses if incurred by an authorized committee of such candidates, in an aggregate amount exceeding $1,000.”
The term “political committee” is defined to mean “any committee, association, or organization (whether or not incorporated) which accepts contributions or makes expenditures for
There is no question that NCPAC and FCM are political committees and that President Reagan was a qualified candidate, and it seems plain enough that the PACs’ expenditures fall within the term “qualified campaign expense.” The PACs have argued in this Court, though apparently not below; that
“The Act‘s contribution and expenditure limitations operate in an area of the most fundamental First Amendment activities. Discussion of public issues and debate on the qualifications of candidates are integral to the operation of the system of government established by our Constitution. The First Amendment affords the broadest protection to such political expression in order ‘to assure [the] unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.’ Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 484 (1957).... This no more than reflects our ‘profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,’ New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 270 (1964).”
The PACs in this case, of course, are not lone pamphleteers or street corner orators in the Tom Paine mold; they spend substantial amounts of money in order to communicate their political ideas through sophisticated media advertisements. And of course the criminal sanction in question is applied to the expenditure of money to propagate political views, rather than to the propagation of those views unaccompanied by the expenditure of money. But for purposes of presenting political views in connection with a nationwide Presidential election, allowing the presentation of views while forbidding the expenditure of more than $1,000 to present them is much like allowing a speaker in a public hall to express his views while denying him the use of an amplifying system. The Court said in Buckley v. Valeo, supra:
“A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expres-
sion by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached. This is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today‘s mass society requires the expenditure of money. The distribution of the humblest handbill or leaflet entails printing, paper, and circulation costs. Speeches and rallies generally necessitate hiring a hall and publicizing the event. The electorate‘s increasing dependence on television, radio, and other mass media for news and information has made these expensive modes of communication indispensable instruments of effective political speech.” Id., at 19.
We also reject the notion that the PACs’ form of organization or method of solicitation diminishes their entitlement to
The FEC urges that these contributions do not constitute individual speech, but merely “speech by proxy,” see California Medical Assn. v. FEC, 453 U. S. 182, 196 (1981) (MARSHALL, J.) (plurality opinion), because the contributors do not control or decide upon the use of the funds by the PACs or the specific content of the PACs’ advertisements and other speech. The plurality emphasized in that case, however, that nothing in the statutory provision in question “limits the amount [an unincorporated association] or any of its members may independently expend in order to advocate political views,” but only the amount it may contribute to
Another reason the “proxy speech” approach is not useful in this case is that the contributors obviously like the message they are hearing from these organizations and want to add their voices to that message; otherwise they would not part with their money. To say that their collective action in pooling their resources to amplify their voices is not entitled to full
Our decision in FEC v. National Right to Work Committee, 459 U. S. 197 (1982) (NRWC), is not to the contrary. That case turned on the special treatment historically accorded corporations. In return for the special advantages that the State confers on the corporate form, individuals acting jointly through corporations forgo some of the rights they have as individuals. Id., at 209-210. We held in NRWC that a rather intricate provision of the FECA dealing with the prohibition of corporate campaign contributions to political candidates did not violate the
Like the National Right to Work Committee, NCPAC and FCM are also formally incorporated; however, these are not “corporations” cases because
Having concluded that the PACs’ expenditures are entitled to full
We held in Buckley and reaffirmed in Citizens Against Rent Control that preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption are the only legitimate and compelling govern-
Corruption is a subversion of the political process. Elected officials are influenced to act contrary to their obligations of office by the prospect of financial gain to themselves or infusions of money into their campaigns. The hallmark of corruption is the financial quid pro quo: dollars for political favors. But here the conduct proscribed is not contributions to the candidate, but independent expenditures in support of the candidate. The amounts given to the PACs are overwhelmingly small contributions, well under the $1,000 limit on contributions upheld in Buckley; and the contributions are by definition not coordinated with the campaign of the candidate. The Court concluded in Buckley that there was a fundamental constitutional difference between money spent to advertise one‘s views independently of the candidate‘s campaign and money contributed to the candidate to be spent on his campaign. We said there:
“Unlike contributions, such independent expenditures may well provide little assistance to the candidate‘s campaign and indeed may prove counterproductive. The absence of prearrangement and coordination of an expenditure with the candidate or his agent not only undermines the value of the expenditure to the candidate, but also alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given as a quid pro quo for improper commitments from the candidate.” Id., at 47.
We think the same conclusion must follow here. It is contended that, because the PACs may by the breadth of their organizations spend larger amounts than the individuals in
Even were we to determine that the large pooling of financial resources by NCPAC and FCM did pose a potential for corruption or the appearance of corruption,
Several reasons suggest that we are not free to adopt a limiting construction that might isolate wealthy PACs, even if such a construction might save the statute. First, Congress plainly intended to prohibit just what
In the District Court, the FEC attempted to show actual corruption or the appearance of corruption by offering evidence of high-level appointments in the Reagan administration of persons connected with the PACs and newspaper articles and polls purportedly showing a public perception of corruption. The District Court excluded most of the proffered evidence as irrelevant to the critical elements to be proved: corruption of candidates or public perception of corruption of candidates. A tendency to demonstrate distrust of PACs is not sufficient. We think the District Court‘s finding that “the evidence supporting an adjudicative finding of corruption or its appearance is evanescent,” 587 F. Supp., at 830, was clearly within its discretion, and we will not disturb it here. If the matter offered by the FEC in the District Court be treated as addressed to what the District Court
Finally, the FEC urges us to uphold
“While [
2 U. S. C.] § 441b restricts the solicitation of corporations and labor unions without great financial resources, as well as those more fortunately situated, we accept Congress’ judgment that it is the potential for such influence that demands regulation. Nor will we second-guess a legislative determination as to the need for prophylactic measures where corruption is the evil feared.”
Here, however, the groups and associations in question, designed expressly to participate in political debate, are quite different from the traditional corporations organized for economic gain. In NRWC we rightly concluded that Congress might include, along with labor unions and corporations traditionally prohibited from making contributions to political candidates, membership corporations, though contributions by the latter might not exhibit all of the evil that contributions by traditional economically organized corporations exhibit. But this proper deference to a congressional determination of the need for a prophylactic rule where the evil of potential corruption had long been recognized does not suffice to establish the validity of
While in NRWC we held that the compelling governmental interest in preventing corruption supported the restriction
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed as to the constitutionality of
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
As I read it, the plain language of
Accordingly, I join only Part II of the Court‘s opinion.
I
Section 9011(b)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code authorizes the Federal Election Commission (FEC), “the national committee of any political party, and individuals eligible to vote for President” to institute actions “to implement or construe” the Fund Act. Relying on this provision, both the FEC and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) brought suit to enjoin expenditures by appellees that violated
A
By its plain terms,
The majority exalts the requirement of appropriateness by ignoring the term‘s context. Section 9011(b)(1) does not impose a free-floating requirement that any action brought thereunder meet some undefined standard of sound policy. Rather it merely refers to “such actions . . . as may be appropriate to implement or con[s]true” the Fund Act. The term “appropriate” limits the type of suit permissible to those aimed at implementing or construing the Act. Thus, the
By placing a greater burden on the term “appropriate” than it can bear, the majority reaches a result that also conflicts with the rest of the provision. Section 9011(b)(1) itself draws no distinction between the FEC and other plaintiffs. To the contrary, by listing them together it implies that they enjoy an equal capacity to bring suit. Indeed, the majority seems to agree. Acknowledging that a suit by the DNC might be “appropriate,” it finds its hands tied by the statute‘s failure to distinguish between possible plaintiffs: “Congress simply did not draft the statute in a way that distinguishes the DNC from any individual voter.” Ante, at 488. This statement is perplexing, for the statute does not distinguish either from the FEC—though the majority does so anyway.
Rather than applying the statute‘s plain words, the majority examines the overall election law scheme to discover what it thinks Congress would consider “appropriate.” But Congress does not usually operate by such complex hidden meanings, and if Congress had intended what the majority says it did, it chose the least helpful way of saying so. It is surprising to learn that while the FEC, a national committee, and an individual may each sue under the Act, the latter two may sue only the first. Surely if this is what Congress had intended, it would have chosen a more convenient way of saying it.3
The majority relies primarily on
Here, all indications are to the contrary. When enacted, as part of the 1974 amendments to the FECA,
The second significant aspect of the 1976 Amendments is the addition of
B
The majority places no reliance on the legislative history of
The Conference Report goes on to note that “[b]ecause the provisions of this title will have a direct and immediate effect on the actions of individuals, organizations, and political parties . . . [who] must know” what candidates and parties will receive what funding, the bill provides for “expeditious disposition of legal proceedings brought with respect to these
C
“Appropriate” is not an ideal statutory term. But its vagueness should not be taken advantage of in order to read the provision in which it appears out of the United States Code. It is not an invitation to judicial legislation. A more restrained reading, consistent with congressional intent, the surrounding provisions, and, most important, the terms of the statute itself, is strongly indicated.
II
Section 9012(f) of the Internal Revenue Code limits to $1,000 the annual independent expenditures a PAC can make to further the election of a candidate receiving public funds. Because these expenditures “produce speech at the core of the First Amendment,” ante, at 493, the majority concludes that they can only be regulated in order to avoid real or apparent corruption. Perceiving no such danger, since the money does not go directly to political candidates or their committees, it strikes down
My disagreements with this analysis, which continues this Court‘s dismemberment of congressional efforts to regulate campaign financing, are many. First, I continue to believe that Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976), was wrongly decided. Congressional regulation of the amassing and spend
A
In Buckley, I explained at some length why I am quite sure that regulations of campaign spending similar to that at issue here are constitutional. See 424 U. S., at 257-266. I adhere to those views. The First Amendment protects the right to speak, not the right to spend, and limitations on the amount of money that can be spent are not the same as restrictions on speaking. I agree with the majority that the expenditures in this case “produce” core First Amendment speech. See ante, at 493. But that is precisely the point: they produce such speech; they are not speech itself. At least in these circumstances, I cannot accept the identification of speech with its antecedents. Such a house-that-Jack-built approach could equally be used to find a First Amendment right to a job or to a minimum wage to “produce” the money to “produce” the speech.
The burden on actual speech imposed by limitations on the spending of money is minimal and indirect. All rights of
If the elected Members of the Legislature, who are surely in the best position to know, conclude that large-scale expenditures are a significant threat to the integrity and fairness of the electoral process, we should not second-guess that judgment. FEC v. National Right to Work Committee, 459 U. S. 197, 210 (1982). Like the expenditure limitations struck down in Buckley,
In short, as I said in Buckley, 424 U. S., at 262, I cannot accept the cynic‘s “money talks” as a proposition of constitutional law. Today‘s holding also rests on a second aspect of the Buckley holding with which I disagree, viz., its distinction between “independent” and “coordinated” expenditures. The Court was willing to accept that expenditures undertaken in consultation with a candidate or his committee should be viewed as contributions. Id., at 46. But it rejected Congress’ judgment that independent expenditures were matters of equal concern, concluding that they did not
The credulous acceptance of the formal distinction between coordinated and independent expenditures blinks political reality. That the PACs’ expenditures are not formally “coordinated” is too slender a reed on which to distinguish them from actual contributions to the campaign. The candidate cannot help but know of the extensive efforts “independently” undertaken on his behalf. In this realm of possible tacit understandings and implied agreements, I see no reason
The PACs do not operate in an anonymous vacuum. There are significant contacts between an organization like NCPAC and candidates for, and holders of, public office. In addition, personnel may move between the staffs of candidates or officeholders and those of PACs. See generally App. 30-40, Joint Stipulations of Fact Nos. 40-103. This is not to say that there has in the past been any improper coordination or political favors. We need not evaluate the accuracy of reports of such activities, or of the perception that large-scale independent PAC expenditures mean “the return of the big spenders whose money talks and whose gifts are not forgotten.” See N. Y. Times, June 15, 1980, section 4, p. 20E, col. 1. It is enough to note that there is ample support for the congressional determination that the corrosive effects of large campaign contributions—not least among these a public perception of business as usual—are not eliminated solely because the “contribution” takes the form of an “independent expenditure.” “Preserving the integrity of the electoral process [and] the individual citizen‘s confidence in government” “are interests of the highest importance.” First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 788-789 (1978).
As in Buckley, I am convinced that it is pointless to limit the amount that can be contributed to a candidate or spent with his approval without also limiting the amounts that can be spent on his behalf.9 In the Fund Act, Congress limited
B
Even if I accepted Buckley as binding precedent, I nonetheless would uphold
The majority never explicitly identifies whose First Amendment interests it believes it is protecting. However, its concern for rights of association and the effective political speech of those of modest means, ante, at 494-495, indicates that it is concerned with the interests of the PACs’ contributors. But the “contributors” are exactly that—contributors, rather than speakers. Every reason the majority gives for treating
But the contributors are not engaging in speech; at least, they are not engaging in speech to any greater extent than are those who contribute directly to political campaigns. Buckley explicitly distinguished between, on the one hand, using one‘s own money to express one‘s views, and, on the other, giving money to someone else in the expectation that that person will use the money to express views with which one is in agreement. This case falls within the latter category. As the Buckley Court stated with regard to contributions to campaigns, “the transformation of contributions into political debate involves speech by someone other than the contributor.” 424 U. S., at 21. The majority does not explain the metamorphosis of donated dollars from money into speech by virtue of the identity of the donee.
It is true that regulating PACs may not advance the Government‘s interest in combating corruption as directly as limiting contributions to a candidate‘s campaign. See Buckley, 424 U. S., at 46. But this concern relates to the governmental interest supporting the regulation, not to the nature of the conduct regulated. Even if spending money is to be considered speech, I fail to see how giving money to an independent organization to use as it wishes is also speech. I had thought the holding in Buckley was exactly the opposite. Certainly later cases would so indicate. See FEC v. National Right to Work Committee, 459 U. S. 197 (1982); California Medical Assn. v. FEC, 453 U. S. 182 (1981).
The Court strikes down
Finally, the burden imposed by
C
These cases are in any event different enough from Buckley that that decision is not dispositive. The challenged provision is not part of the FECA, whose expenditure limitations were struck down in Buckley. Rather, it is part of the Fund Act, which was, to the extent it was before the Court, upheld.
The Fund Act provides major party candidates the option of accepting public financing, drawn from a fund composed of voluntary checkoffs from federal income tax payments, and forgoing all private contributions. In upholding this system
It is quite clear from the statutory scheme and the legislative history that the public financing alternative was to be comprehensive and exclusive—a total substitution for private financing. If the public funding merely supplements rather than supplants the private, its benefits are nil. Indeed, early proposals for public financing came to grief on exactly this problem. For example, Congress passed a public funding scheme in 1966, Foreign Investors Tax Act of 1966, Pub. L. 89-809, 80 Stat. 1539, only to repeal it a year later. One of the reasons for abandoning that effort was, in the words of the sponsor of the repealing legislation, that it failed to limit the “raising and spending of private funds on behalf of presidential candidates or any other candidates” and would permit fundraising and spending to proceed as it had. 113 Cong. Rec. 8062-8063 (1967) (remarks of Sen. Gore). The same objection was voiced with regard to other proposals. See
Because it is an indispensable component of the public funding scheme,
The existence of the public financing scheme changes the picture in other ways as well. First, it heightens the danger of corruption discounted by the majority. If a candidate accepts public financing, private contributions are limited to zero.
The majority argues that there is no danger here of direct political favors—the paradigmatic ambassadorship in ex-
The provision for exclusive public funding not only enhances the danger of real or perceived corruption posed by independent expenditures, it also gives more weight to the interest in holding down the overall cost of political campaigns. In Buckley, this concern was partly ignored and partly rejected as not achieved by the means chosen. See 424 U. S., at 25-26, and n. 27, 48-49. Neither course is possible here. The Fund Act was a response not merely to “the influence of excessive private political contributions,” but also to the “dangers of spiraling campaign expenditures.” H. R. Rep. No. 93-1239, p. 13 (1974). I am unwilling to discount the latter concern, particularly in the context of a scheme where public financing is supposed to replace private financing and cap total expenditures. Certainly there can be no concern that communication will suffer for want of money spent on the campaigns.13 Finally, in the context of the pub-
D
By striking down one portion of an integrated and comprehensive statute, the Court has once again transformed a coherent regulatory scheme into a nonsensical, loophole-ridden patchwork. As THE CHIEF JUSTICE pointed out with regard to the similar outcome in Buckley, “[b]y dissecting the Act bit by bit, and casting off vital parts, the Court fails to recognize that the whole of this Act is greater than the sum of its parts.” 424 U. S., at 235. Without
I respectfully dissent.
JUSTICE MARSHALL, dissenting.
In Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976) (per curiam), this Court upheld congressional limitations on contributions to candidates for federal office but struck down limitations on independent expenditures made on behalf of such candidates. In upholding the former, the Court stated that “the weighty interests served by restricting the size of financial contributions to political candidates are sufficient to justify the limited effect upon First Amendment freedoms caused by the $1,000 contribution ceiling.” Id., at 29. In striking down
The contribution/expenditure distinction in Buckley was grounded on two factors. First, the Court reasoned that independent expenditures offer significantly less potential for abuse than contributions:
“Unlike contributions, such independent expenditures may well provide little assistance to the candidate‘s campaign and may indeed prove counterproductive. The absence of prearrangement and coordination of an expenditure with the candidate or his agent not only undermines the value of the expenditure to the candidate, but also alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given as a quid pro quo for improper commitments from the candidate.” Id., at 47.
Undoubtedly, when an individual interested in obtaining the proverbial ambassadorship had the option of either contributing directly to a candidate‘s campaign or doing so indirectly through independent expenditures, he gave money directly. It does not take great imagination, however, to see that, when the possibility for direct financial assistance is severely limited, as it is in light of Buckley‘s decision to uphold the contribution limitation, such an individual will find other ways to financially benefit the candidate‘s campaign. It simply belies reality to say that a campaign will not reward massive financial assistance provided in the only way that is legally available. And the possibility of such a reward provides a powerful incentive to channel an independent expend
The second factor supporting the distinction between contributions and expenditures was the relative magnitude of the First Amendment interest at stake. The Court found that the constitutional interest implicated in the limitation on expenditures was the right to advocate the election or defeat of a particular candidate. This right, the Court reasoned, “is no less entitled to protection under the First Amendment than the discussion of political policy generally or advocacy of the passage or defeat of legislation.” Id., at 48. In contrast, the Court found that the limitation on contributions primarily implicated “the contributor‘s freedom of political association.” Id., at 24-25. Although the Court acknowledged that this right was a “fundamental” one, id., at 25, it concluded that the expenditure ceiling imposed significantly more severe restrictions on political freedoms than the contribution limitation, id., at 23.
I disagree that the limitations on contributions and expenditures have significantly different impacts on First Amendment freedoms. First, the underlying rights at issue—freedom of speech and freedom of association—are both core First Amendment rights. Second, in both cases the regulation is of the same form: It concerns the amount of money that can be spent for political activity. Thus, I do not see how one interest can be deemed more compelling than the other.*
Also, I join Part I of JUSTICE WHITE‘S dissent, which concerns the standing of the Democratic National Committee.