Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/13pdf/12-536_e1pf.pdf
Page Number: 15.0

Cite as:  572 U. S. ____ (2014) 

9 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

because most large donors do not seek improper influence
over legislators’ actions.  Although the Court accepted that
premise,  it  nevertheless  rejected  the  overbreadth  chal-
lenge for two reasons: First, it was too “difficult to isolate
suspect  contributions”  based  on  a  contributor’s  subjective
Id.,  at  30.  Second,  “Congress  was  justified  in
intent. 
concluding  that  the  interest  in  safeguarding  against  the
appearance  of  impropriety  requires  that  the  opportunity
for abuse inherent in the process of raising large monetary 
contributions be eliminated.”  Ibid. 

Finally,  in  one  paragraph  of  its  139-page  opinion,  the 
Court turned to the $25,000 aggregate limit under FECA. 
As  a  preliminary  matter,  it  noted  that  the  constitution-
ality  of  the  aggregate  limit  “ha[d]  not  been  separately
addressed  at  length  by  the  parties.”    Id.,  at  38.  Then,  in 
three  sentences,  the  Court  disposed  of  any  constitutional 
objections  to  the  aggregate  limit  that  the  challengers
might have had: 

“The  overall  $25,000  ceiling  does  impose  an  ultimate
restriction  upon  the  number  of  candidates  and  com-
mittees  with  which  an  individual  may  associate  him-
self  by  means  of  financial  support.    But  this  quite 
modest  restraint  upon  protected  political  activity
serves  to  prevent  evasion  of  the  $1,000  contribution 
limitation by a person who might otherwise contribute 
massive  amounts  of  money  to  a  particular  candidate
through  the  use  of  unearmarked  contributions  to  po-
litical  committees  likely  to  contribute  to  that  candi-
date, or huge contributions to the candidate’s political 
party.    The  limited,  additional  restriction  on  associa-
tional  freedom  imposed  by  the  overall  ceiling  is  thus
no  more  than  a  corollary  of  the  basic  individual  con-
tribution limitation that we have found to be constitu-
tionally valid.”  Ibid.