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Page Number: 16.0

10 

MCCUTCHEON v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

B 
1 
The  parties  and  amici  curiae  spend  significant  energy
debating  whether  the  line  that  Buckley  drew  between 
contributions  and  expenditures  should  remain  the  law.
Notwithstanding the robust debate, we see no need in this
case to revisit Buckley’s distinction between contributions 
and  expenditures  and  the  corollary  distinction  in  the 
applicable  standards  of  review.  Buckley  held  that  the 
Government’s interest in preventing quid pro quo corrup-
tion or its appearance was “sufficiently important,” id., at 
26–27;  we  have  elsewhere  stated  that  the  same  interest 
may  properly  be  labeled  “compelling,”  see  National  Con-
servative Political Action Comm., 470 U. S., at 496–497, so 
that the interest would satisfy even strict scrutiny.  More-
over, regardless whether we apply strict scrutiny or Buck-
ley’s  “closely  drawn”  test,  we  must  assess  the  fit  between 
the stated governmental objective and the means selected 
to achieve that objective.  See, e.g., National Conservative 
Political  Action  Comm.,  supra,  at  496–501;  Randall  v. 
Sorrell, 548 U. S. 230, 253–262 (2006) (opinion of BREYER, 
J.).  Or to put it another way, if a law that restricts politi-
cal  speech  does  not  “avoid  unnecessary  abridgement”  of 
First  Amendment  rights,  Buckley,  424  U. S.,  at  25,  it 
cannot survive “rigorous” review.

Because  we  find  a  substantial  mismatch  between  the 
Government’s  stated  objective  and  the  means  selected  to
achieve it, the aggregate limits fail even under the “closely 
drawn”  test.  We  therefore  need  not  parse  the  differences
between the two standards in this case. 

2 
Buckley  treated  the  constitutionality  of  the  $25,000 
aggregate  limit  as  contingent  upon  that  limit’s  ability  to 
prevent circumvention of the $1,000 base limit, describing 
the  aggregate  limit  as  “no  more  than  a  corollary”  of  the