Court Opinion

ID: 9428547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:06.451135+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:14.174104
License: Public Domain

Justice Rehnquist,
concurring.
I agree that the judgment of the Supreme Court of California must be reversed in this case. Unlike the factual situation in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765 (1978), the Berkeley ordinance was not aimed only at corporations, but sought to impose an across-the-board limitation on the size of contributions to committees formed to support or oppose ballot measure referenda. While one of the appellants here, Mason-McDuffie, is a California corporation, there is no indication that the Berkeley ordinance was aimed at corporations as opposed to individuals. Therefore, my dissenting opinion -in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, supra, which relied on the corporate shield which the State had granted to corporations as a form of quid pro quo for the limitation does not come into play. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976), holds that in this situation there is no state interest which could justify a limitation on the exercise of rights guaranteed under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.