Opinion ID: 109380
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The $1,000 Limitation on Expenditures Relative to a Clearly Identified Candidate

Text: Section 608 (e) (1) provides that [n]o person may make any expenditure . . . relative to a clearly identified candidate during a calendar year which, when added to all other expenditures made by such person during the year advocating the election or defeat of such candidate, exceeds $1,000. [45] The plain effect of § 608 (e) (1) is to prohibit all individuals, who are neither candidates nor owners of institutional press facilities, and all groups, except political parties and campaign organizations, from voicing their views relative to a clearly identified candidate through means that entail aggregate expenditures of more than $1,000 during a calendar year. The provision, for example, would make it a federal criminal offense for a person or association to place a single one-quarter page advertisement relative to a clearly identified candidate in a major metropolitan newspaper. [46] Before examining the interests advanced in support of § 608 (e) (1)'s expenditure ceiling, consideration must be given to appellants' contention that the provision is unconstitutionally vague. [47] Close examination of the specificity of the statutory limitation is required where, as here, the legislation imposes criminal penalties in an area permeated by First Amendment interests. See Smith v. Goguen, 415 U. S. 566, 573 (1974); Cramp v. Board of Public Instruction, 368 U. S. 278, 287-288 (1961); Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 151 (1959). [48] The test is whether the language of § 608 (e) (1) affords the [p]recision of regulation [that] must be the touchstone in an area so closely touching our most precious freedoms. NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S., at 438. The key operative language of the provision limits any expenditure . . . relative to a clearly identified candidate. Although expenditure, clearly identified, and candidate are defined in the Act, there is no definition clarifying what expenditures are relative to a candidate. The use of so indefinite a phrase as relative to a candidate fails to clearly mark the boundary between permissible and impermissible speech, unless other portions of § 608 (e) (1) make sufficiently explicit the range of expenditures covered by the limitation. The section prohibits any expenditure . . . relative to a clearly identified candidate during a calendar year which, when added to all other expenditures . . . advocating the election or defeat of such candidate, exceeds $1,000. (Emphasis added.) This context clearly permits, if indeed it does not require, the phrase relative to a candidate to be read to mean advocating the election or defeat of a candidate. [49] But while such a construction of § 608 (e) (1) refocuses the vagueness question, the Court of Appeals was mistaken in thinking that this construction eliminates the problem of unconstitutional vagueness altogether. 171 U. S. App. D. C., at 204, 519 F. 2d, at 853. For the distinction between discussion of issues and candidates and advocacy of election or defeat of candidates may often dissolve in practical application. Candidates, especially incumbents, are intimately tied to public issues involving legislative proposals and governmental actions. Not only do candidates campaign on the basis of their positions on various public issues, but campaigns themselves generate issues of public interest. [50] In an analogous context, this Court in Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516 (1945), observed: [W]hether words intended and designed to fall short of invitation would miss that mark is a question both of intent and of effect. No speaker, in such circumstances, safely could assume that anything he might say upon the general subject would not be understood by some as an invitation. In short, the supposedly clear-cut distinction between discussion, laudation, general advocacy, and solicitation puts the speaker in these circumstances wholly at the mercy of the varied understanding of his hearers and consequently of whatever inference may be drawn as to his intent and meaning. Such a distinction offers no security for free discussion. In these conditions it blankets with uncertainty whatever may be said. It compels the speaker to hedge and trim. Id., at 535. See also United States v. Auto. Workers, 352 U. S. 567, 595-596 (1957) (Douglas, J., dissenting); Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 673 (1925) (Holmes, J., dissenting). The constitutional deficiencies described in Thomas v. Collins can be avoided only by reading § 608 (e) (1) as limited to communications that include explicit words of advocacy of election or defeat of a candidate, much as the definition of clearly identified in § 608 (e) (2) requires that an explicit and unambiguous reference to the candidate appear as part of the communication. [51] This is the reading of the provision suggested by the non-governmental appellees in arguing that [f]unds spent to propagate one's views on issues without expressly calling for a candidate's election or defeat are thus not covered. We agree that in order to preserve the provision against invalidation on vagueness grounds, § 608 (e) (1) must be construed to apply only to expenditures for communications that in express terms advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for federal office. [52] We turn then to the basic First Amendment question whether § 608 (e) (1), even as thus narrowly and explicitly construed, impermissibly burdens the constitutional right of free expression. The Court of Appeals summarily held the provision constitutionally valid on the ground that section 608 (e) is a loophole-closing provision only that is necessary to prevent circumvention of the contribution limitations. 171 U. S. App. D. C., at 204, 519 F. 2d, at 853. We cannot agree. The discussion in Part I-A, supra, explains why the Act's expenditure limitations impose far greater restraints on the freedom of speech and association than do its contribution limitations. The markedly greater burden on basic freedoms caused by § 608 (e) (1) thus cannot be sustained simply by invoking the interest in maximizing the effectiveness of the less intrusive contribution limitations. Rather, the constitutionality of § 608 (e) (1) turns on whether the governmental interests advanced in its support satisfy the exacting scrutiny applicable to limitations on core First Amendment rights of political expression. We find that the governmental interest in preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption is inadequate to justify § 608 (e) (1)'s ceiling on independent expenditures. First, assuming, arguendo, that large independent expenditures pose the same dangers of actual or apparent quid pro quo arrangements as do large contributions, § 608 (e) (1) does not provide an answer that sufficiently relates to the elimination of those dangers. Unlike the contribution limitations' total ban on the giving of large amounts of money to candidates, § 608 (e) (1) prevents only some large expenditures. So long as persons and groups eschew expenditures that in express terms advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate, they are free to spend as much as they want to promote the candidate and his views. The exacting interpretation of the statutory language necessary to avoid unconstitutional vagueness thus undermines the limitation's effectiveness as a loophole-closing provision by facilitating circumvention by those seeking to exert improper influence upon a candidate or office-holder. It would naively underestimate the ingenuity and resourcefulness of persons and groups desiring to buy influence to believe that they would have much difficulty devising expenditures that skirted the restriction on express advocacy of election or defeat but nevertheless benefited the candidate's campaign. Yet no substantial societal interest would be served by a loophole-closing provision designed to check corruption that permitted unscrupulous persons and organizations to expend unlimited sums of money in order to obtain improper influence over candidates for elective office. Cf. Mills v. Alabama, 384 U. S., at 220. Second, quite apart from the shortcomings of § 608 (e) (1) in preventing any abuses generated by large independent expenditures, the independent advocacy restricted by the provision does not presently appear to pose dangers of real or apparent corruption comparable to those identified with large campaign contributions. The parties defending § 608 (e) (1) contend that it is necessary to prevent would-be contributors from avoiding the contribution limitations by the simple expedient of paying directly for media advertisements or for other portions of the candidate's campaign activities. They argue that expenditures controlled by or coordinated with the candidate and his campaign might well have virtually the same value to the candidate as a contribution and would pose similar dangers of abuse. Yet such controlled or coordinated expenditures are treated as contributions rather than expenditures under the Act. [53] Section 608 (b)'s contribution ceilings rather than § 608 (e) (1)'s independent expenditure limitation prevent attempts to circumvent the Act through prearranged or coordinated expenditures amounting to disguised contributions. By contrast, § 608 (e) (1) limits expenditures for express advocacy of candidates made totally independently of the candidate and his campaign. Unlike contributions, such independent expenditures may well provide little assistance to the candidate's campaign and indeed may prove counterproductive. The absence of prearrangement and coordination of an expenditure with the candidate or his agent not only undermines the value of the expenditure to the candidate, but also alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given as a quid pro quo for improper commitments from the candidate. Rather than preventing circumvention of the contribution limitations, § 608 (e) (1) severely restricts all independent advocacy despite its substantially diminished potential for abuse. While the independent expenditure ceiling thus fails to serve any substantial governmental interest in stemming the reality or appearance of corruption in the electoral process, it heavily burdens core First Amendment expression. For the First Amendment right to  `speak one's mind . . . on all public institutions'  includes the right to engage in  `vigorous advocacy' no less than `abstract discussion.'  New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S., at 269, quoting Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, 270 (1941), and NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S., at 429. Advocacy of the election or defeat of candidates for federal office is no less entitled to protection under the First Amendment than the discussion of political policy generally or advocacy of the passage or defeat of legislation. [54] It is argued, however, that the ancillary governmental interest in equalizing the relative ability of individuals and groups to influence the outcome of elections serves to justify the limitation on express advocacy of the election or defeat of candidates imposed by § 608 (e) (1)'s expenditure ceiling. But the concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment, which was designed to secure `the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources,'  and  `to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.'  New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, at 266, 269, quoting Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S. 1, 20 (1945), and Roth v. United States, 354 U. S., at 484. The First Amendment's protection against governmental abridgment of free expression cannot properly be made to depend on a person's financial ability to engage in public discussion. Cf. Eastern R. Conf. v. Noerr Motors, 365 U. S. 127, 139 (1961). [55] The Court's decisions in Mills v. Alabama, 384 U. S. 214 (1966), and Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241 (1974), held that legislative restrictions on advocacy of the election or defeat of political candidates are wholly at odds with the guarantees of the First Amendment. In Mills, the Court addressed the question whether a State, consistently with the United States Constitution, can make it a crime for the editor of a daily newspaper to write and publish an editorial on election day urging people to vote a certain way on issues submitted to them. 384 U. S., at 215 (emphasis in original). We held that no test of reasonableness can save [such] a state law from invalidation as a violation of the First Amendment. Id., at 220. Yet the prohibition of election-day editorials invalidated in Mills is clearly a lesser intrusion on constitutional freedom than a $1,000 limitation on the amount of money any person or association can spend during an entire election year in advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for public office. More recently in Tornillo, the Court held that Florida could not constitutionally require a newspaper to make space available for a political candidate to reply to its criticism. Yet under the Florida statute, every newspaper was free to criticize any candidate as much as it pleased so long as it undertook the modest burden of printing his reply. See 418 U. S., at 256-257. The legislative restraint involved in Tornillo thus also pales in comparison to the limitations imposed by § 608 (e) (1). [56] For the reasons stated, we conclude that § 608 (e) (1)'s independent expenditure limitation is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.