Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-12_m6hn.pdf
Page Number: 30

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

3 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

Still, the conduct targeted by Section 304 threatens, if any-
thing does, both corruption and the appearance of corrup-
tion of the quid pro quo kind.  That is because the regulated
transactions—as Members of Congress well knew from ex-
perience—personally enrich those already elected to office.
In allowing those payments to go forward unrestrained, to-
day’s decision can only bring this country’s political system 
into further disrepute. 

I 
In assessing a law’s burden on speech, this Court’s deci-
sions all distinguish between restricting expenditures and 
restricting  contributions.    See,  e.g.,  Buckley  v.  Valeo,  424 
U. S.  1,  19–23  (1976)  (per  curiam).  (The  majority  glosses 
over that core distinction, for reasons that will soon become 
clear.)  According  to  settled  precedent,  expenditure  re-
strictions—caps  on  a  campaign’s  or  candidate’s  electoral 
spending—impose the greatest burdens on expression.  The 
First Amendment, as the majority notes, “has its fullest and
most urgent application” when a “legislative limit” prevents
a  candidate  from  “us[ing]  personal  funds  to  finance  cam-
paign speech”—that is, speech “on behalf of his own candi-
dacy.”  Ante, at 10 (internal quotation marks omitted).  By
contrast,  laws  focused  on  third-party  contributions  to  a 
campaign (a category the majority mostly prefers to ignore) 
typically  “entail[ ]  only  a  marginal  restriction”  on  First 
Amendment interests.  Buckley, 424 U. S., at 20.  Take, for 
example, a simple limit on the amount someone can donate
to a campaign, like the federal $2,900 ceiling.  That kind of 
restriction, we have reasoned, in no way interferes with the 
donor’s “freedom to discuss candidates and issues” through 
independent spending.  Id., at 21.  And it has only an indi-
rect effect on the campaign itself.  To be sure, the cap makes
raising money (for speech and other things) harder: It forces
candidates “to raise funds from a greater number” of people
and generally results in the campaign taking in less money