Opinion ID: 150472
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Standard for Evaluating the CFRA's Contribution Bans

Text: In a long line cases beginning with Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976), the Supreme Court has distinguished laws restricting campaign expenditures and campaign-related speech from laws restricting campaign contributions. The Court has determined that laws limiting campaign expenditures and campaign-related speech impose significantly more severe restrictions on protected freedoms of political expression and association than do laws limiting campaign contributions. Id. at 23, 96 S.Ct. 612. As a result, the Court has evaluated laws limiting campaign expenditures and campaign-related speech under the strict scrutiny standard, which requires the Government to prove that the restriction furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm'n, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 130 S.Ct. 876, 898, ___ L.Ed.2d ___, ___ (2010) (quotation marks omitted). For laws limiting campaign contributions, by contrast, the Court has conducted a relatively complaisant review under the First Amendment. Beaumont, 539 U.S. at 161, 123 S.Ct. 2200. Such laws, the Court has concluded, are merely `marginal' speech restrictions, since contributions lie closer to the edges than to the core of political expression. Id. Thus, instead of requiring contribution regulations to be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest, a law limiting contributions passes muster if it satisfies the lesser demand of being `closely drawn' to match a `sufficiently important interest.' Id. at 162, 123 S.Ct. 2200 (quoting Nixon v. Shrink Mo. Gov't PAC, 528 U.S. 377, 387-88, 120 S.Ct. 897, 145 L.Ed.2d 886 (2000)) (some quotation marks omitted); see also Buckley, 424 U.S. at 25, 96 S.Ct. 612. The Court has always applied that lower standardoften referred to as the closely drawn standardto evaluate First Amendment challenges to laws restricting campaign contributions. See, e.g., Randall v. Sorrell, 548 U.S. 230, 253, 126 S.Ct. 2479, 165 L.Ed.2d 482 (2006) (plurality opinion); McConnell v. Fed. Election Comm'n, 540 U.S. 93, 138 n. 40, 124 S.Ct. 619, 157 L.Ed.2d 491 (2003), overruled in part on other grounds by Citizens United, 130 S.Ct. at 913; Beaumont, 539 U.S. at 161, 123 S.Ct. 2200. The Court has applied the closely drawn standard even when the law in question imposed an outright ban on contributions. In Beaumont, for instance, the Court applied the closely drawn standard in upholding a federal law that banned all campaign contributions made by corporations. See id. at 149, 161-62, 123 S.Ct. 2200. Although the Court's campaign-finance jurisprudence may be in a state of flux (especially with regard to campaign-finance laws regulating corporations), Beaumont and other cases applying the closely drawn standard to contribution limits remain good law. Indeed, in the recent Citizens United case, the Court overruled two of its precedents and struck down a federal law banning independent campaign expenditures by corporations, but it explicitly declined to reconsider its precedents involving campaign contributions by corporations to candidates for elected office. See 130 S.Ct. at 909 (Citizens United has not made direct contributions to candidates, and it has not suggested that the Court should reconsider whether contribution limits should be subjected to rigorous First Amendment scrutiny.). We will, therefore, evaluate the contribution bans imposed by the CFRA under the closely drawn standard. We will uphold the statutory bans against plaintiffs' First Amendment challenge only if they are closely drawn to achieve a sufficiently important government interest. Beaumont, 539 U.S. at 162, 123 S.Ct. 2200 (quotation marks omitted). In so doing, we reject plaintiffs' argument that we must apply strict scrutiny because the provisions at issue here are bans, as opposed to mere limits. Such an argument was explicitly rejected in Beaumont (which, as discussed above, remains binding precedent). See id. As Beaumont concisely explained: It is not that the difference between a ban and a limit is to be ignored; it is just that the time to consider it is when applying scrutiny at the level selected, not in selecting the standard of review itself. Id. Accordingly, the closely drawn standard applies to the bans on contributions imposed by the CFRA. As we discuss in greater detail below, however, the fact that the provisions impose outright bansand not limitson contributions is a factor we will consider when we apply [] scrutiny at the level selected and determine whether the provisions are, in fact, closely drawn to achieve the state's interests. Id.