Opinion ID: 131149
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Associational Burdens Imposed by the Levin Amendment

Text: Plaintiffs also contend that § 323(b) is unconstitutional because the Levin Amendment unjustifiably burdens association among party committees by forbidding transfers of Levin funds among state parties, transfers of hard money to fund the allocable federal portion of Levin expenditures, and joint fundraising of Levin funds by state parties. We recognize, as we have in the past, the importance of preserving the associational freedom of parties. See, e. g., California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U. S. 567 (2000); Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Comm., 489 U. S. 214 (1989). But not every minor restriction on parties' otherwise unrestrained ability to associate is of constitutional dimension. See Colorado II, 533 U. S., at 450, n. 11. As an initial matter, we note that state and local parties can avoid these associational burdens altogether by forgoing the Levin Amendment option and electing to pay for federal election activities entirely with hard money. But in any event, the restrictions on the use, transfer, and raising of Levin funds are justifiable anticircumvention measures. Without the ban on transfers of Levin funds among state committees, donors could readily circumvent the $10,000 limit on contributions to a committee's Levin account by making multiple $10,000 donations to various committees that could then transfer the donations to the committee of choice. [65] The same anticircumvention goal undergirds the ban on joint solicitation of Levin funds. Without this restriction, state and local committees could organize all hands fundraisers at which individual, corporate, or union donors could make large soft-money donations to be divided between the committees. In that case, the purpose, if not the letter, of § 323(b)(2)'s $10,000 limit would be thwarted: Donors could make large, visible contributions at fundraisers, which would provide ready means for corrupting federal officeholders. Given the delicate and interconnected regulatory scheme at issue here, any associational burdens imposed by the Levin Amendment restrictions are far outweighed by the need to prevent circumvention of the entire scheme. Section 323(b)(2)(B)(iv)'s apparent prohibition on the transfer of hard money by a national, state, or local committee to help fund the allocable hard-money portion of a separate state or local committee's Levin expenditures presents a closer question. 2 U. S. C. A. § 441i(b)(2)(B)(iv) (Supp. 2003). The Government defends the restriction as necessary to prevent the donor committee, particularly a national committee, from leveraging the transfer of federal money to wrest control over the spending of the recipient committee's Levin funds. This purported interest is weak, particularly given the fact that § 323(a) already polices attempts by national parties to engage in such behavior. See 2 U. S. C. A. § 441i(a)(2) (extending § 323(a)'s restrictions to entities controlled by national party committees). However, the associational burdens posed by the hard-money transfer restriction are so insubstantial as to be de minimis. Party committees, including national party committees, remain free to transfer unlimited hard money so long as it is not used to fund Levin expenditures. State and local party committees can thus dedicate all homegrown hard money to their Levin activities while relying on outside transfers to defray the costs of other hard-money expenditures. Given the strong anticircumvention interest vindicated by § 323(b)(2)(B)(iv)'s restriction on the transfer of Levin funds, we will not strike down the entire provision based upon such an attenuated claim of associational infringement.