Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/13pdf/12-536_e1pf.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

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

3 

Syllabus 

separately  addressed  by  the  parties.    Appellants  here,  by  contrast,
have directly challenged the aggregate limits in place under BCRA, a
different statutory regime whose limits operate against a distinct le-
gal backdrop.  Most notably, statutory safeguards against circumven-
tion  have  been  considerably  strengthened  since  Buckley.  The  1976 
FECA Amendments added another layer of base limits—capping con-
tributions  from  individuals  to  political  committees—and  an  antipro-
liferation  rule  prohibiting  donors  from  creating  or  controlling  multi-
ple  affiliated  political  committees.  Since  Buckley,  the  Federal 
Election Commission has also enacted an intricate regulatory scheme 
that  further  limits  the  opportunities  for  circumvention  of  the  base 
limits  through  “unearmarked  contributions  to  political  committees
likely  to  contribute”  to  a  particular  candidate.    424  U. S.,  at  38.    In 
addition to accounting for such statutory and regulatory changes, ap-
pellants raise distinct legal arguments not considered in Buckley, in-
cluding an overbreadth challenge to the aggregate limit.  Pp. 10–14. 

(b) Significant  First  Amendment  interests  are  implicated  here. 
Contributing  money  to  a  candidate  is  an  exercise  of  an  individual’s
right to participate in the electoral process through both political ex-
pression and political association.  A restriction on how many candi-
dates and committees an individual may support is hardly a “modest
restraint”  on  those  rights.    The  Government  may  no  more  restrict 
how many candidates or causes a donor may support than it may tell
a  newspaper  how  many  candidates  it  may  endorse.    In  its  simplest 
terms, the aggregate limits prohibit an individual from fully contrib-
uting  to  the  primary  and  general  election  campaigns  of  ten  or  more 
candidates, even if all contributions fall within the base limits.  And 
it is no response to say that the individual can simply contribute less
than  the  base  limits  permit:  To  require  one  person  to  contribute  at
lower  levels  because  he  wants  to  support more  candidates or  causes
is  to  penalize  that  individual  for  “robustly  exercis[ing]”  his  First
Amendment rights.  Davis v. Federal Election Comm’n, 554 U. S. 724, 
739. 

In assessing the First Amendment interests at stake, the proper fo-
cus is on an individual’s right to engage in political speech, not a col-
lective  conception  of  the  public  good.    The  whole  point  of  the  First
Amendment  is  to  protect  individual  speech  that  the  majority  might 
prefer to restrict, or that legislators or judges might not view as use-
ful to the democratic process.  Pp. 14–18.

(c) The aggregate limits do not further the permissible governmen-
tal interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption or its appearance. 
Pp. 18–36. 

(1) This  Court  has  identified  only  one  legitimate  governmental 
interest  for  restricting  campaign  finances:  preventing  corruption  or