Opinion ID: 2494205
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Issue/Express Advocacy Distinction Generally

Text: The issue discussion/express advocacy distinction has its roots in the Supreme Court's decision in Buckley v. Valeo . Perhaps the Court's seminal decision in the area of campaign finance regulation, Buckley resolved a wide-ranging series of challenges to provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA). One of those challenged provisions, of relevance to our discussion here, imposed an absolute cap on independent expenditures, stating 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.' Buckley, 424 U.S. at 39, 96 S.Ct. 612 (alterations in original) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 608(e)). Reviewing this language, the Court first noted that the use of so indefinite a phrase as `relative to' a candidate raised serious vagueness concerns. Id. at 41, 96 S.Ct. 612. The Court construed the phrase (by reference to its surrounding terms) as limited to expenditures advocating the election or defeat of a candidate. However, this construction, in the Court's estimation, merely refocus[ed] the vagueness question. Id. at 42, 96 S.Ct. 612. The Court's evident concern was that the statute, even as limited, failed to draw a sharp enough line between advocacy of a candidate's election and discussion of issues, and that the resulting uncertainty over what the statute covered would `compel[ ] the speaker to hedge and trim,' id. at 43, 96 S.Ct. 612 (quoting Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 535, 65 S.Ct. 315, 89 L.Ed. 430 (1945)): [T]he 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. Id. at 42, 96 S.Ct. 612. To avoid this uncertainty, the Court limited the scope of the statute to expenditures for communications that in express terms [25] advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for federal office. Id. at 44, 96 S.Ct. 612. [26] The constitutional basis for this concern with distinguishing between laws that regulate advocacy of a candidate's election and those that regulate pure issue discussion has never been entirely clear. Buckley explicitly framed its discussion in terms of unconstitutional vagueness under the Due Process Clause, and there is, to be sure, a vagueness dimension to the analysis. See, e.g., FEC v. Wis. Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449, 497, 127 S.Ct. 2652, 168 L.Ed.2d 329 (2007) (Scalia, J., concurring in part) (referring to the express advocacy portion of Buckley as the decision's vagueness holding). However, this interpretation has its limits; the mere fact that a statute may cover issue discussion as well as candidate advocacy does not alone render it vague under due process standards, provided that the statute is reasonably clear in its coverage. Perhaps for this reason, there are hints in Buckley that the constitutional basis for the Court's concern lay more in overbreadthi.e., that statutes that reached issue discussion might be deemed to regulate impermissibly a substantial amount of speech protected by the First Amendment than in vagueness. See, e.g., 424 U.S. at 80, 96 S.Ct. 612 (limiting a second, disclosure-related provision of FECA to communications that expressly advocate a candidate's election to insure that the reach of [the provision] is not impermissibly broad). This reading finds considerable support in subsequent authority. See Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103, 120 n. 14, 110 S.Ct. 1691, 109 L.Ed.2d 98 (1990) (describing Buckley as a case where a law was construed to avoid potential overbreadth problems); FEC v. Mass. Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U.S. 238, 248, 107 S.Ct. 616, 93 L.Ed.2d 539 (1986) (stating that Buckley's express advocacy limitation was imposed to avoid problems of overbreadth); cf. McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93, 192, 124 S.Ct. 619, 157 L.Ed.2d 491 (2003) (noting that Buckley narrowly read[ ] the FECA provisions . . . to avoid problems of vagueness and overbreadth), overruled on other grounds by Citizens United, 130 S.Ct. 876. Regardless of its origins, the dividing line between issue discussion and express advocacy, as it evolved, came to be associated more strongly with First Amendment overbreadth analysis than with due process vagueness concerns. [27] See, e.g., Wis. Right to Life, 551 U.S. at 457, 127 S.Ct. 2652 (noting that the law in this area requires us . . . to draw such a line, because we have recognized that the interests held to justify the regulation of campaign speech [under the First Amendment] . . . `might not apply' to the regulation of issue advocacy (quoting McConnell, 540 U.S. at 206 n. 88, 124 S.Ct. 619)).