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Page Number: 55

4 

MCCUTCHEON v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

quo corruption to mean no more than “a direct exchange of
an official act for money”—an act akin to bribery.   Ante, at 
2–3.  It  adds  specifically  that  corruption  does  not  include 
efforts  to  “garner  ‘influence  over  or  access  to’  elected  offi­
cials  or  political  parties.”  Ante,  at  19  (quoting  Citizens 
United,  supra,  at  359).   Moreover,  the  Government’s  ef­
forts to prevent the “appearance of corruption” are “equally 
confined  to  the  appearance  of  quid  pro  quo  corruption,” 
as narrowly defined.  Ante, at 19.  In the plurality’s view, a
federal statute could not prevent an individual from writ­
ing a million dollar check to a political party (by donating 
to  its  various  committees),  because  the  rationale  for  any
limit  would  “dangerously  broade[n]  the  circumscribed
definition  of  quid  pro  quo  corruption  articulated  in  our 
prior cases.”  Ante, at 37. 

This  critically  important  definition  of  “corruption”  is
inconsistent  with  the  Court’s  prior  case  law  (with  the 
possible  exception  of  Citizens  United,  as  I  will  explain 
below).  It  is  virtually  impossible  to  reconcile  with  this
Court’s  decision  in  McConnell,  upholding  the  Bipartisan
Campaign  Reform  Act  of  2002  (BCRA).    And  it  misun- 
derstands  the  constitutional  importance  of  the  interests 
at  stake. 
interests—indeed, 
fact,  constitutional 
First Amendment interests—lie on both sides of the legal
equation. 

In 

A 

In  reality,  as  the  history  of  campaign  finance  reform 

shows and as our earlier cases on the subject have recog­
nized,  the  anticorruption  interest  that  drives  Congress  to 
regulate  campaign  contributions  is  a  far  broader,  more
important interest than the plurality acknowledges.  It is 
an  interest  in  maintaining  the  integrity  of  our  public
governmental institutions.  And it is an interest rooted in 
the Constitution and in the First Amendment itself. 

Consider at least one reason why the First Amendment