Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-12_m6hn.pdf
Page Number: 16.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

52.  By restricting the sources of funds that campaigns may 
use to repay candidate loans, Section 304 increases the risk
that  such  loans  will  not  be  repaid.    That  in  turn  inhibits 
candidates  from  loaning  money  to  their  campaigns  in  the 
first place, burdening core speech.

The data bear out the deterrent effect of Section 304.  Af-
ter BCRA was passed, there appeared a “clear clustering of
[candidate]  loans  right  at  the  $250,000  threshold.”    A. 
Ovtchinnikov  &  P.  Valta,  Debt  in  Political  Campaigns  26
(2020), Record 65–1 (Ovtchinnikov, Debt); see also Brief for 
United States Senator Roy Blunt et al. as Amici Curiae 6– 
7.  There was no such clustering before the loan-repayment 
limitation went into effect.  The Government’s evidence in 
the District Court, moreover, reflects that the percentage of 
loans  by  Senate  candidates  for  exactly  $250,000  has  in-
creased tenfold since BCRA was passed.  See App. 312–313.
Section 304, then, has altered “the propensity of many pol-
iticians to make large loans.”  Ovtchinnikov, Debt 26; see 
also Brief for Protect the First Foundation as Amicus Cu-
riae 10–11.  In doing so, it has predictably restricted a can-
didate’s speech on behalf of his own candidacy.  See Buck-
ley, 424 U. S., at 54. 

Quite  apart  from  this  record  evidence,  the  burden  on
First  Amendment  expression  is  “evident  and  inherent”  in
the choice that candidates and their campaigns must con-
front.  Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. 
Bennett, 564 U. S. 721, 745 (2011); see also id., at 746 (“we
do not need empirical evidence to determinate that the law 
at issue is burdensome”); Davis v. Federal Election Comm’n, 
554 U. S. 724, 738–740 (2008) (requiring no empirical evi-
dence of a burden).  Although Section 304 “does not impose
a cap on a candidate’s expenditure of personal funds, it im-
poses an unprecedented penalty on any candidate who ro-
bustly exercises that First Amendment right.”  Id., at 738– 
739.  That penalty, of course, is the significant risk that a