The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) is the most recently enacted federal law regulating money in the political sphere. One of the first such federal campaign finance law dates back to the 1907 Tillman Act, which responded to President Roosevelt's request for legislation prohibiting all corporate political contributions. In 1925, with the Federal Corrupt Practices Act, Congress extended the prohibition on corporations making "contributions" to include "anything of value" and criminalized both the acceptance of corporate contributions as well as the making of such contributions. With the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, Congress prohibited labor union contributions in connection with federal elections. In 1972, Congress enacted the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). As first enacted, FECA required disclosure of contributions and expenditures over a certain amount; prohibited contributions made in the name of another person and by government contractors; and ratified the earlier prohibition on the use of corporate and union general treasury funds for contributions and expenditures, but permitted corporations and unions to establish and administer separate segregated funds (also known as political action committees or PACs) for election related contributions and expenditures. Citing deficiencies in the 1972 law and responding to Watergate, Congress amended FECA in 1974, to include limits on individual, PAC, and party contributions; limits on candidate spending; and the establishment of the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Primarily in response to the Supreme Court striking down the appointment process of the FEC in its 1976 seminal decision, Buckley v. Valeo, Congress amended FECA in 1976, and again in 1979, in an effort to make the law less burdensome to participants and to foster greater grassroots activity. In the landmark 1976 decision, Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of FECA, as amended in 1974, and the Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act. The Court upheld the constitutionality of certain provisions, including (1) contribution limits to federal office candidates, (2) disclosure and record-keeping provisions, and (3) public financing of presidential elections. The Court found other provisions unconstitutional, including (1) expenditures limitations on candidates and their political committees, (2) the $1,000 limitation on independent expenditures, (3) expenditure limitations by candidates from their personal funds, and (4) the method of appointing members to the Federal Election Commission. In general, the Court struck down expenditure limitations, but upheld reasonable contribution limitations, disclosure requirements, and public financing provisions, so long as participation is voluntary, not compelled. In considering the constitutionality of these statutes, the Buckley Court applied the standard of review known as "exacting scrutiny," which is a standard applied by a court when presented with regulations that burden core First Amendment activity. "Exacting scrutiny" requires a regulation to be struck down unless it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest. When analyzing First Amendment claims, a court will generally first determine whether the challenged government action implicates "speech" or "associational activity" guaranteed by the First Amendment. Notably, the Buckley Court held that the spending of money, whether in the form of contributions or expenditures, is a form of "speech" protected by the First Amendment. A number of principles contributed to the Court's analogy between money and speech. First, the Court found that candidates need to amass sufficient wealth to amplify and effectively disseminate their message to the electorate. Second, restricting political contributions and expenditures, the Court held, "necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of the exploration, and the size of the audience reached. This is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money." The Court then observed that a major purpose of the First Amendment was to increase the quantity of public expression of political ideas, as free and open debate is "integral to the operation of the system of government established by our Constitution." From these general principles, the Court concluded that contributions and expenditures facilitated this interchange of ideas and could not be regulated as "mere" conduct unrelated to the underlying communicative act of making a contribution or expenditure. However, according to the Court, contributions and expenditures invoke different degrees of First Amendment protection. Recognizing contribution limitations as one of FECA's "primary weapons against the reality or appearance of improper influence" on candidates by contributors, the Court found that these limits "serve the basic governmental interest in safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process." Thus, the Court concluded that "the actuality and appearance of corruption resulting from large financial contributions" was a sufficient compelling interest to warrant infringements on First Amendment liberties "to the extent that large contributions are given to secure a quid pro quo from [a candidate.]" Short of a showing of actual corruption, the Court found that the appearance of corruption from large campaign contributions also justified these limitations. Reasonable contribution limits, the Court remarked, leave "people free to engage in independent political expression, to associate [by] volunteering their services, and to assist [candidates by making] limited, but nonetheless substantial [contributions."] Further, according to the Court, a reasonable contribution limitation does "not undermine to any material degree the potential for robust and effective discussion of candidates and campaign issues by individual citizens, associations, the institutional press, candidates, and political parties." Finally, the Court found that the contribution limits of FECA were narrowly tailored insofar as the Act "focuses precisely on the problem of large campaign contributions." On the other hand, the Court determined that FECA's expenditure limits on individuals, political action committees (PACs), and candidates imposed "direct and substantial restraints on the quantity of political speech" and were not justified by an overriding governmental interest. The Court rejected the government's asserted interest in equalizing the relative resources of candidates and in reducing the overall costs of campaigns. Restrictions on expenditures, the Court held, constitute a substantial restraint on the enjoyment of First Amendment freedoms. As opposed to reasonable limits on contributions, which merely limit the expression of a person's "support" of a candidate, the "primary effect of [limitations on expenditures] is to restrict the quantity of campaign speech by individuals, groups and candidates." "A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached," the Court noted. The Court also found that the government's interests in stemming corruption by limiting expenditures were not compelling enough to override the First Amendment's protection of free and open debate because unlike contributions, the risk of quid pro quo corruption was not present, as the flow of money does not directly benefit a candidate's campaign fund. Upon a similar premise, the Court rejected the government's interest in limiting a wealthy candidate's ability to draw upon personal wealth to finance his or her campaign and struck down the personal expenditure limitation In Buckley , the Supreme Court generally upheld FECA's disclosure and reporting requirements, but noted that they might be found unconstitutional as applied to certain groups. While compelled disclosure, in itself, raises substantial freedom of private association and belief issues, the Court held that these interests were adequately balanced by the state's regulatory interests. The state asserted three compelling interests in disclosure: (1) providing the electorate with information regarding the distribution of capital between candidates and issues in a campaign, thereby providing voters with additional evidence upon which to base their vote; (2) deterring actual and perceived corruption by exposing the source of large expenditures; and (3) providing regulatory agencies with information essential to the election law enforcement. However, when disclosure requirements expose members or supporters of historically suspect political organizations to physical or economic reprisal, then disclosure may fail constitutional scrutiny as applied to a particular organization. The Supreme Court's language in Buckley prompted analysts to label election-related communications as either "issue" or "express advocacy" communications. In order to pass constitutional muster and not be struck down as unconstitutionally vague, the Court ruled that FECA could only apply to non-candidate "expenditures for communications that in express terms advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for federal office," i.e., expenditures for express advocacy communications. In a footnote to the Buckley opinion, the Court further defined "express words of advocacy of election or defeat" as, "vote for," "elect," "support," "cast your ballot for," "Smith for Congress," "vote against," "defeat," and "reject." Communications not meeting the express advocacy definition in that footnote became commonly referred to as issue advocacy communications. In its rationale for establishing such a bright line distinction between issue and express advocacy, the Court noted that the discussion of issues and candidates as well as the advocacy of election or defeat of candidates "may often dissolve in practical application." That is, according to the Court, candidates (especially incumbents) are intimately tied to public issues involving legislative proposals and governmental actions. In the years following the 1976 landmark decision in Buckley, various developments persuaded Congress that further legislation was necessary to regulate the role of corporations, labor unions, and wealthy contributors in the electoral process. The Supreme Court in McConnell v. FEC outlined changes in three specific areas over the years that led to the enactment of BCRA: the increased use of party soft money, soft money spent on issue advertising, and the 1998 Senate investigation into the 1996 federal elections. In general, the term "hard money" or "federal money" refers to funds that are raised and spent according to the contribution limits, source prohibitions, and disclosure requirements of FECA, while the term "soft money" or "non-federal money" is used to describe funds raised and spent outside the federal election regulatory framework, but which may have at least an indirect impact on federal elections.