Buckley v. Valeo

Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on campaign finance . A majority of justices held that, as provided by section 608 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 , limits on election expenditures are unconstitutional. In a per curiam (by the Court) opinion, they ruled that expenditure limits contravene the First Amendment provision on freedom of speech because a restriction on spending for political communication necessarily reduces the quantity of expression. It limited disclosure provisions and limited the Federal Election Commission 's power. Justice Byron White dissented in part and wrote that Congress had legitimately recognized unlimited election spending as "a mortal danger against which effective preventive and curative steps must be taken".

Buckley v. Valeo was extended by the U.S. Supreme Court in further cases, including in the five to four decision of _First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti _ in 1978 and _Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission _ in 2010. The latter held that corporations may spend from their general treasuries during elections. In 2014, _McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission _ held that aggregate limits on political giving by an individual are unconstitutional. By some measures, Buckley is the longest opinion ever issued by the Supreme Court.

Contents

• 1 Facts

• 2 Judgment

  • 2.1 General principles

  • 2.2 Contribution limits

  • 2.3 Expenditure limits

  • 2.4 Reporting and disclosure requirements

  • 2.5 Public funding of campaigns

  • 2.6 Make-up of FEC

• 3 Dissents

• 4 Significance

• 5 See also

• 6 Notes

• 7 References and further reading

• 8 External links

Facts

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buckley_v._Valeo&action=edit&section=1 "Edit section: Facts")

Congress had made previous attempts to regulate campaign finance. It passed the Tillman Act of 1907 , and then the Taft–Hartley Act in 1947 . Neither was well enforced. In 1974, Congress passed significant amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA), creating the most comprehensive effort by the federal government to date to regulate federal campaign contributions and spending. President Gerald Ford signed the bill into law on October 15. The key parts of the amended law did the following:

• limited contributions to candidates for federal office (2 USC §441a)
• required the disclosure of political contributions (2 USC §434),
• provided for the public financing of presidential elections (IRC Subtitle H),
• limited expenditures by candidates and associated committees,
• limited independent expenditures to $1,000 (formerly 18 U.S.C. §608e),
• limited candidate expenditures from personal funds (formerly 18 U.S.C. §608a),
• created and fixed the method of appointing members to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) (formerly 2 U.S.C. §437c(a) (1)(A–C)). Eight members of the commission were to be chosen as follows: the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives were ex officio members of the Commission without a right to vote; two members would be appointed by the President pro tempore of the Senate upon recommendations of the majority and minority leaders of the Senate; two would be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives upon recommendations of the majority and minority leaders of the House, and two would be appointed by the President. The six voting members would then need to be confirmed by the majority of both Houses of Congress. In addition, there was a requirement that each of the three appointing authorities was forbidden to choose both of their appointees from the same political party.

The lawsuit was filed in the District Court for the District of Columbia , on January 2, 1975, by U.S. Senator James L. Buckley (a member of the Conservative Party of New York State ), former U.S. Senator and 1968 presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy (a Democrat from Minnesota), the New York Civil Liberties Union , the American Conservative Union , the Socialist Workers Party , the Libertarian Party , and numerous other plaintiffs. The named defendant in the caption was Francis R. Valeo , the Secretary of the Senate , an _ex officio _ member of the FEC who represented the U.S. federal government . The trial court denied plaintiffs ' request for declaratory and injunctive relief. Plaintiffs then appealed to the Court of Appeals and finally to the Supreme Court.

The plaintiffs argued that the legislation violated the 1st and 5th Amendment rights to freedom of expression and due process , respectively.

Judgment

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buckley_v._Valeo&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: Judgment")

In a per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court held that several key provisions of the Campaign Finance Act, § 608(a), which limited expenditure by political campaigns, are unconstitutional and contrary to the First Amendment . The major holdings were as follows:

• The Court upheld limits on contributions to candidates.
• The Court upheld limitations on volunteers' incidental expenses.
• The Court upheld the aggregate limit on an individual's total contributions to all candidates and committees in a calendar year.
• The Court struck down limits on expenditures by candidates.
• The Court struck down limits on independent expenditures (i.e., expenditures by other groups or individuals than candidates and political parties).
• The Court upheld mandatory disclosure and reporting provisions, but it narrowed the types of speech to which they could apply.
• The Court upheld a system of voluntary government funding of campaigns, including limits on spending by candidates who choose to accept government subsidies.
• The Court struck down the system by which members of Congress directly appointed Federal Election Commission commissioners.

The Court's opinion begins by stating certain "General Principles", and then dealing with individual parts of the law in turn.

Gene

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