Buckley V Valeo Quotes

Here’s what I think it should entail: First, we must overturn, through a constitutional amendment, the Citizens United decision, as well as the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo ruling, which introduced the absurd notion that spending money on behalf of a candidate or a political party is a form of protected speech. Moreover, we must fight to overturn the 2014 McCutcheon v. FEC decision, which struck down limits on how much an individual can contribute to a national party and to a candidate’s campaign

Prior to 2010, the Court’s holding in Buckley v. Valeo (424 U.S. 1 (1976))—in which it equated spending to political speech—meant that individuals were free to spend unlimited sums on their own, even for “express advocacy” of the election or defeat of a named candidate. Individuals funding communications in this way were (and are) subject to only one constraint: They had to identify themselves on/in the material, generally with a “paid for by” disclosure statement. However, individuals seeking to pool their resources with others were subject to significantly more regulations. This was true even if only two people desired to jointly fund an ad, as the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) defined a political committee as “any committee, club, association, or other group of persons which receives contributions aggregating in excess of $1,000 during a calendar year or which makes expenditures aggregating in excess of $1,000 during a calendar year; or in order to add their funds to those of like-minded individuals for the purpose of amplifying the message

The seminal case in American campaign finance is Buckley v. Valeo (424 U.S. 1 (1976)), in which the contribution and spending limitations enacted in the early 1970s with the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) were challenged on First Amendment grounds. The FECA was a significant, wide-ranging reform that had for the first time created a meaningful regulatory environment in federal campaign finance. The law implemented statutory campaign contribution limits, and also originally mandated spending limitations for congressional campaigns. Moreover, the FECA barred all expenditures made by either private citizens or groups “advocating the election or defeat of (a) candidate” in excess of $1,000 per annum. In Buckley, the Supreme Court held that while contribution limits were constitutional, there could be no prohibition on either individuals or candidates looking to spend their own money to directly communicate a political message. The distinction between contributions and direct spending in Buckley is based on two premises. First, the government has an interest in preventing instances of corruption, or even in limiting public perceptions of corruption. Second, money spent on election communications effectively equates to speech in the modern political realm, so more money spent in this manner is equivalent to more speech. In contrast, the act of contribution by an individual to a candidate, party, or PAC is itself an expressive act.

I’m going to invite you to contemplate a fictional scenario. Say that we are all citizens in a New England town with a traditional town meeting. As usual, a modest proportion of the citizens eligible to attend have actually turned out, let’s say four or five hundred. After calling the meeting to order, the moderator announces: “We have established the following rules for this evening’s discussion. After a motion has been properly made and seconded, in order to ensure free speech under rules fair to everyone here, each of you who wishes to do so will be allowed to speak on the motion. However, to enable as many as possible to speak, no one will be allowed to speak for more than two minutes.” Perfectly fair so far, you might say. But now our moderator goes on: “After everyone who wishes to speak for two minutes has had the floor, each and every one of you is free to speak further, but under one condition. Each additional minute will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.” The ensuing uproar from the assembled citizens would probably drive the moderator and the board of selectman away from the town hall—and perhaps out of town. Yet isn’t this in effect what the Supreme Court decided in the famous case of Buckley v. Valeo? In a seven-to-one vote, the court held that the First Amendment–guarantee of freedom of expression was impermissibly infringed by the limits placed by the Federal Election Campaign Act on the amounts that candidates for federal office or their supporters might spend to promote their election.3 Well, we’ve had time to see the appalling consequences.