Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 620.0

Cite as: 558 U. S. 310 (2010) 

459 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

99.97%  independent  expenditures  ($3  million)  and  0.03%  di­
rect  contributions  ($1,000)—as  a  “contribution.”  See,  e. g., 
id.,  at  872  (“The  basis  for  the  [recusal]  motion  was  that  the 
justice had received campaign contributions in an extraordi­
nary  amount  from”  Blankenship);  id.,  at  873  (referencing 
“Blankenship’s  $3  million  in  contributions”);  id.,  at  884 
(“Blankenship  contributed  some  $3  million  to unseat  the  in­
cumbent and replace him with Benjamin”); id., at 885 (“Blan­
kenship’s  campaign  contributions  .  .  .  had  a  signiﬁcant  and 
disproportionate  inﬂuence  on  the  electoral  outcome”).  The 
reason  the  Court  so  thoroughly  conﬂated  expenditures  and 
contributions,  one  assumes,  is  that  it  realized  that  some  ex­
penditures  may  be  functionally  equivalent  to  contributions 
in the way they inﬂuence the outcome of a race, the way they 
are  interpreted  by  the  candidates  and  the  public,  and  the 
way they taint the decisions  that the ofﬁceholder thereafter 
takes. 

Caperton is illuminating in several additional respects.  It 
underscores  the  old  insight  that,  on  account  of  the  extreme 
difﬁculty  of  proving  corruption,  “prophylactic  measures, 
reaching  some  [campaign  spending]  not  corrupt  in  purpose 
or effect, [may be] nonetheless required to guard against cor­
ruption.”  Buckley,  424  U. S.,  at  30;  see  also  Shrink  Mis­
souri,  528  U. S.,  at  392,  n.  5.  It  underscores  that  “certain 
restrictions  on  corporate  electoral  involvement”  may  like­
wise be needed to “hedge against circumvention of valid con­
tribution  limits.”  McConnell,  540  U. S.,  at  205  (internal 
quotation marks and brackets omitted); see also Colorado II, 
533  U. S.,  at  456  (“[A]ll  Members  of  the  Court  agree  that 
circumvention  is  a  valid  theory  of  corruption”).  It  under­
scores  that  for-proﬁt  corporations  associated  with  election­
eering communications will often prefer to use nonproﬁt con­
duits  with  “misleading  names,”  such  as  And  For  The  Sake 
Of  The  Kids,  “to  conceal  their  identity”  as  the  sponsor  of 
those communications, thereby frustrating the utility of dis­