Randall v. Sorrell

2006

Venue: SCOTUS

Facts: VT campaign finance laws limit both the campaign finance expenditures and contributions.

Posture: Not stated.

Issue: Do these restrictions violate 1A?

Holding: Yes, they sure do.

Rule: Expenditure restrictions directly limit political speech. Contribution limits aren't per se impermissible, but these are too restrictive.

Reasoning: The expenditure part is easy: it controls what ads can be purchased.

We want to avoid corruption, and contribution limits help with that. At the same time, though, at some point a low enough limit will interfere with a challenger's ability to dislodge an incumbent. This is so strict that it will do significant harm to elections (there are five pretty smart reasons cited).


Dicta: Thomas (concurring): We should be willing to overrule Buckley

Stevens (dissenting): Money does not equal speech. We are creating a system where our officials have to spend their time fundraising instead of legislating.