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Page Number: 36

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MCCUTCHEON v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

the  base  limits.  The  absence  of  such  a  prospect  today
belies  the  Government’s  asserted  objective  of  preventing 
corruption  or  its  appearance.    The  improbability  of  cir-
cumvention  indicates  that  the  aggregate  limits  instead 
further  the  impermissible  objective  of  simply  limiting  the 
amount of money in political campaigns. 

C 
Quite  apart  from  the  foregoing,  the  aggregate  limits
violate the First Amendment because they are not “closely 
drawn  to  avoid  unnecessary  abridgment  of  associational 
freedoms.”  Buckley,  424  U. S.,  at  25. 
In  the  First 
Amendment context, fit matters.  Even when the Court is 
not  applying  strict  scrutiny,  we  still  require  “a  fit  that  is 
not necessarily perfect, but reasonable; that represents not 
necessarily the single best disposition but one whose scope 
is  ‘in  proportion  to  the  interest  served,’  . . .  that  employs 
not necessarily the least restrictive means but . . . a means
narrowly tailored to achieve the desired objective.”  Board 
of  Trustees  of  State  Univ.  of  N.  Y.  v.  Fox,  492  U. S.  469, 
480  (1989)  (quoting  In  re  R.  M.  J.,  455  U. S.  191,  203 
(1982)).  Here, because the statute is poorly tailored to the 
Government’s  interest  in  preventing  circumvention  of  the
base  limits,  it  impermissibly  restricts  participation  in
the political process. 

1 

The  Government  argues  that  the  aggregate  limits  are 
justified because they prevent an individual from giving to
too many initial recipients who might subsequently recon-
tribute a donation.  After all, only recontributed funds can 
conceivably  give  rise  to  circumvention  of  the  base  limits.
Yet all indications are that many types of recipients have 
scant interest in regifting donations they receive.

Some figures might be useful to put the risk  of circum-
vention in perspective.  We recognize that no data can be