Buckley v. Valeo
Did the Federal Election Campaign Act's limits on campaign contributions and expenditures, its disclosure and reporting requirements, its public financing provisions for presidential elections, and the method of appointing members of the Federal Election Commission violate the First Amendment or other constitutional provisions?
The Decision
Per curiam (varied by issue; no single vote count applies to the entire decision) decision · Opinion by Per Curiam (unsigned opinion of the Court) · 1976
Majority Opinion— Per Curiam (unsigned opinion of the Court)concurring ↓dissent ↓
In a landmark per curiam opinion (meaning it was issued by the Court as an institution rather than attributed to a single justice), handed down on January 30, 1976, the Supreme Court issued a complex, multi-part ruling that upheld some provisions of FECA and struck down others. The Court drew a critical distinction between campaign contributions and campaign expenditures that would become the foundational framework for all future campaign finance law in America. Different portions of the opinion commanded different majorities, as various justices concurred in part and dissented in part.
On contributions, the Court upheld the limits. The majority reasoned that contributing money to a candidate is a form of political association and expression, but it is one step removed from direct communication. A contribution is a symbolic act of support, and the precise size of the contribution does not change the underlying message. Because the speech interest in contributions is more limited, the government's interest in preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption — particularly the danger that large contributions might create a sense of obligation in elected officials — was sufficient to justify the restriction. The Court applied a less demanding standard of review, asking only whether the limits were 'closely drawn' to serve a 'sufficiently important interest.'
On expenditures, however, the Court reached the opposite conclusion and struck down the limits on independent expenditures by individuals and groups, the limits on candidates' personal spending on their own campaigns, and the overall ceilings on campaign spending. The majority held that restricting how much a person or candidate can spend to communicate political messages directly and substantially restricts the quantity of political speech. Unlike contributions, expenditures involve the speaker's own direct expression — buying an advertisement, printing a flyer, or funding a rally. Because these limits imposed a direct burden on core First Amendment speech, they were subject to strict scrutiny, and the government's interest in preventing corruption was insufficient to justify them. The Court notably rejected the government's argument that promoting equality of political influence among citizens was a sufficient justification for restricting speech, declaring that 'the concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment.'
The Court also upheld FECA's disclosure and reporting requirements, finding that they served important governmental interests in providing voters with information, deterring corruption, and aiding enforcement of contribution limits. The public financing provisions for presidential elections were likewise upheld, as the Court found they did not compel anyone to participate and did not violate the First Amendment. However, the Court struck down the method of appointing FEC commissioners, holding that because the Commission exercised executive powers (such as enforcement authority), its members had to be appointed by the President under the Appointments Clause of Article II, and Congress could not reserve some appointments for itself.
Concurring Opinions
Because the opinion was per curiam and the various justices each filed opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part, there were no traditional concurrences in the usual sense. Instead, each justice's separate opinion reflected agreement with some parts of the per curiam ruling and disagreement with others, creating an unusually fragmented decision in which no single justice agreed with every aspect of the Court's analysis. Justice Stevens, who had recently joined the Court, did not participate in the case.
Dissenting Opinions
Warren E. Burger
Chief Justice Burger argued that the Court's fundamental distinction between contributions and expenditures was artificial and untenable. He believed that contributions are just as much a form of political expression as expenditures, and that if expenditure limits violate the First Amendment, contribution limits should fall on the same grounds.
- The act of making a political contribution is itself a significant form of political expression and association, not merely a marginal or symbolic gesture, and deserves the same level of First Amendment protection as direct expenditures.
- The disclosure provisions were overly broad and could chill the associational rights of citizens, particularly supporters of minor parties and unpopular causes who might face harassment or retaliation.
- The public financing system unfairly advantaged the two major parties and incumbent politicians, effectively using taxpayer money to entrench the existing political order.
Byron R. White
Justice White dissented from the Court's decision to strike down expenditure limits, arguing that Congress had a legitimate and compelling interest in limiting the corrupting influence of large sums of money in elections. He believed the Court should have deferred more to Congress's judgment that both contribution and expenditure limits were necessary to address corruption.
- Unlimited expenditures by candidates and their supporters create the same risks of corruption and undue influence as large contributions, and the Court's distinction between the two was not grounded in practical reality.
- Congress, having firsthand knowledge of the corrupting influence of money in politics, was in a better position than the judiciary to determine what limits were needed to preserve the integrity of the democratic process.
- Striking down expenditure limits while upholding contribution limits would undermine the overall effectiveness of the campaign finance regulatory scheme Congress had carefully designed.
Thurgood Marshall
Justice Marshall dissented specifically from the Court's invalidation of the limit on how much of their own personal wealth candidates could spend on their campaigns. He argued that allowing unlimited personal spending by wealthy candidates created a fundamental inequality that Congress had every right to address.
- Without limits on candidate personal expenditures, wealthy individuals have a dramatic built-in advantage in elections, effectively making wealth a prerequisite for competitive candidacy and undermining the democratic principle of equal opportunity to seek public office.
- The restriction on personal candidate spending was closely tied to the overall regulatory scheme and its elimination would significantly benefit wealthy candidates at the expense of candidates of modest means.
William H. Rehnquist
Justice Rehnquist dissented from the Court's upholding of the public financing provisions for presidential elections, arguing that the system's structure unconstitutionally discriminated against minor parties and new political movements by giving far greater benefits to the two established major parties.
- The public financing scheme gave full funding to major-party candidates while providing only partial, after-the-fact reimbursement to minor-party and new-party candidates, creating a government-imposed disadvantage that violated the First and Fifth Amendments.
- Using taxpayer funds to subsidize the major parties at the expense of political newcomers and challengers amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of a two-party system.
Harry A. Blackmun
Justice Blackmun expressed uncertainty about the validity of contribution limits, arguing that he was not fully persuaded that the Court's distinction between contributions and expenditures could sustain different constitutional treatment. He concurred in most of the opinion but dissented in part.
- The line between contributions and expenditures may not be as constitutionally significant as the per curiam opinion suggested, and contribution limits may restrict protected political association in ways that deserve greater scrutiny.
- He was troubled by the potential for the contribution limits to hamper political discourse and association, though he acknowledged the difficulty of the constitutional questions involved.
Background & Facts
In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress passed sweeping amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) in 1974 to regulate money in politics. The law imposed limits on how much individuals and groups could contribute to candidates ($1,000 per individual per candidate per election, $5,000 per political committee), caps on how much candidates could spend on their own campaigns, limits on independent expenditures by individuals and groups ($1,000 per candidate per election), and ceilings on total campaign expenditures. It also required detailed disclosure and reporting of contributions and expenditures, established a system of public financing for presidential campaigns, and created the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to administer and enforce the law.
An unusual coalition of challengers came together to contest the law. Senator James L. Buckley of New York — a Conservative Party member and brother of commentator William F. Buckley Jr. — was the lead plaintiff. He was joined by former Senator Eugene McCarthy (a Democrat who had mounted an insurgent presidential campaign in 1968), the American Conservative Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Libertarian Party, and various other individuals and organizations spanning the political spectrum. They all shared one basic concern: the law went too far in regulating political speech. The defendant was Francis R. Valeo, the Secretary of the United States Senate and an ex officio member of the newly created FEC, along with other government officials responsible for enforcing the law.
The challengers argued that virtually every provision of FECA violated the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech and association. They contended that spending money to communicate political messages is a form of protected expression, and that the government had no sufficient justification for restricting it. They also raised a structural constitutional challenge: the FEC's members were appointed partly by Congress rather than by the President, which the challengers argued violated the Constitution's Appointments Clause.
The case was initially heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, sitting en banc (with all judges participating), which largely upheld the law. The challengers then sought review at the Supreme Court. Given the enormous national importance of the case — touching on the intersection of democratic self-governance, political speech, and electoral integrity — the Supreme Court agreed to hear it and set an extraordinarily compressed briefing and argument schedule, with oral arguments spanning an unusual two days in November 1975.
The Arguments
Buckley and a broad coalition of co-challengers argued that the Federal Election Campaign Act's restrictions on contributions and expenditures amounted to unconstitutional limits on political speech protected by the First Amendment. They contended that spending money to communicate political ideas is itself a form of expression, and that the government cannot cap how much a person spends to speak about candidates and elections.
- Money is inextricably linked to political communication — printing pamphlets, buying advertisements, and organizing rallies all cost money — so restricting spending is effectively restricting speech itself.
- The expenditure and contribution limits were so low that they would severely hamper the ability of candidates, citizens, and political organizations to communicate effectively with voters, particularly challengers who lack the built-in name recognition of incumbents.
- The FEC's structure violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution because its members exercised executive power but were not appointed by the President with Senate confirmation, as the Constitution requires for 'Officers of the United States.'
The government argued that FECA's restrictions were justified by compelling interests in preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption in the political process, and in promoting equality among citizens in their ability to influence elections. The law was a reasonable, narrowly tailored response to real abuses that had been documented in the Watergate era.
- Large contributions and expenditures create a risk of actual corruption — essentially buying access to or influence over elected officials — and even the appearance of such corruption undermines public confidence in democracy.
- Contribution and expenditure limits help ensure that the political marketplace is not dominated by the wealthiest individuals and organizations, preserving the democratic ideal that all citizens have a roughly equal voice.
- The disclosure requirements and FEC structure were practical necessities for enforcement, allowing the public to know who was funding political campaigns and ensuring that the rules were administered by a bipartisan body.