Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee and Douglas Jones, Treasurer v. Federal Election Commission (518 U.S. 604)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 26, 1996 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 518 U.S. 604 · 116 S. Ct. 2309
- Decided
- June 26, 1996
- Term
- October Term 1995
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
- Constitutional ruling
- Federal law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice O’Connor and Justice Souter join. In April 1986, before the Colorado Republican Party had selected its senatorial candidate for the fall’s election, that party’s Federal Campaign Committee bought radio advertisements attacking Timothy Wirth, the Democratic Party’s likely candidate. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) charged that this “expenditure” exceeded the dollar limits that a provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA or Act) imposes upon political party “expenditure[s] in connection with” a “general election campaign” for congressional office. 90 Stat. 486, as amended, 2 U. S. C. § 441a(d)(3). This case focuses upon the constitutionality of those limits as applied to this case. We conclude that the First Amendment prohibits the application of this provision to the kind of expenditure at issue here — an expenditure that the political party has made independently, without coordination with any candidate. I To understand the issues and our holding, one must begin with FECA as it emerged from Congress in 1974. That Act sought both to remedy the appearance of a “corrupt” political process (one in which large contributions seem to buy legislative votes) and to level the electoral playing field by reducing campaign costs. See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 25-27…
Excerpt of a 36,813-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.