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Page Number: 71

20 

MCCUTCHEON v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

which of the ten Rich Donors is personally responsible for
the $2 million he or she receives.  But the recipient candi­
date is highly likely to know who the ten Rich Donors are,
and to feel appropriately grateful.  Moreover, the ability of
a small group of donors to contribute this kind of money to 
threatened candidates is not insignificant.  In the example 
above—with  ten  Rich  Donors  giving  $2  million  each,  and 
ten  Embattled  Candidates  receiving  $2  million  each—the
contributions would have been enough to finance a consid­
erable portion of, and perhaps all of, the candidates’ races 
in  the  2012  elections.  See  Appendix  C,  Table  1,  infra,  at 
42  (showing  that  in  2012,  the  average  winning  House
candidate  spent  $1.6  million  and  the  average  winning 
Senate candidate spent $11.5 million). 

B 

The  plurality  believes  that  the  three  scenarios  I  have 
just  depicted  either  pose  no  threat,  or  cannot  or  will  not 
take  place.    It  does  not  believe  the  scenario  depicted  in 
Example One is any cause for concern, because it involves
only  “general,  broad-based  support  of  a  political  party.” 
Ante, at 37.  Not so.  A candidate who solicits a multimil­
lion dollar check for his party will be deeply grateful to the 
checkwriter, and surely could reward him with a quid pro 
quo  favor.  The  plurality  discounts  the  scenarios  depicted 
in Example Two and Example Three because it finds such 
circumvention  tactics  “illegal  under  current  campaign 
finance  laws,”  “implausible,”  or  “divorced  from  reality.” 
Ante, at 23, 24, 28.  But they are not.

The plurality’s view depends in large part upon its claim 
that since this Court decided Buckley in 1976, changes in
either  statutory  law  or  in  applicable  regulations  have 
come  to  make  it  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  these  cir­
cumvention scenarios to arise.  Hence, it concludes, there 
is no longer a need for aggregate contribution limits.  See 
ante, at 11–13, 22–29.  But a closer examination of the five