Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
Appellant: James L. Buckley
Appellee: Francis R. Valeo, secretary of the U.S. Senate
Appellant’s Claim: That various provisions of the 1974 amendments to
the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) regulating
campaign contributions are unconstitutional.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant: Ralph K. Winter Jr., Joel M. Gora, Brice
M. Claggett
Chief Lawyers for Appellee: Daniel M. Friedman, Archibald Cox,
Lloyd M. Cutler, Ralph S. Spritzer
Justices for the Court: Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan Jr.,
Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell Jr., William H. Rehnquist,
Potter Stewart
Justices Dissenting: Thurgood Marshall, Byron R. White (John Paul
Stevens did not participate)
Date of Decision: January 30, 1976
Decision: The Court found some provisions constitutional, including
limits on contributions, and it found unconstitutional provisions on
expenditures and the way FEC members are selected.
Significance: The decision changed campaign finance laws. Perhaps
the most significant change was the finding that no restrictions on
contributions from individuals and groups could be set so long as
the contributions were not directly part of an election campaign.
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Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
From 1999 to 2000 a grandmother over eighty years old walked across
the United States to draw attention to the need for campaign-finance
reform. U.S. senator John McCain of Arizona also based his popular but
unsuccessful run to become the Republican candidate for president in the
2000 elections on campaign finance reform. What is campaign finance
reform and why is it a hot issue? Campaign finance is simply the way political parties and their candidates receive the money they need to carry their
message to the public in hopes of being elected to office.
Many believed the campaign finance system at the start of the
twenty-first century created distrust and suspicion in the public and weakened concepts of fairness. To many individuals, government seemed
increasingly out of reach from their influence, a tool of the rich and
powerful special interest groups. Special interest groups gave millions of
dollars to congressional campaigns. The laws these interest groups want
often get passed, generally leaving consumers to pay the price. For
example, U.S. sugar producers in 1995 and 1996 contributed $2.7 million to campaigns. In return they received $1.1 billion in annual sugar
price supports. As a result, consumers paid 25 percent higher sugar prices
in the grocery stores. U.S. congressman Dan Miller of Florida in 1997
called the sugar industry “the poster child for why we need campaign
reform.”
The Supreme Court ruling in Buckley v. Valeo (1976) provided an
underlying basis for various groups to spend lots of money in support
of political candidates. The Buckley case involved challenges to a
sweeping 1971 campaign finance reform act.
The Federal Election Campaign Act
In an effort to control the spending and influence of special interest
groups, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971
(FECA), and amended (changed) it in 1974. Unhappy with several
FECA provisions (parts), a number of federal office holders and candidates for political office, U.S. senator James L. Buckley of New York
among them, and some political organizations brought suit in the U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit was against various
federal officials, including Francis R. Valeo, secretary of the U.S. Senate,
and against the Federal Election Commission (FEC), created by the act.
Buckley charged that various provisions of the 1974 amendments were
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Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
U.S. senator James Buckley of
New York, appellant in
Buckley v. Valeo.
© BETTMANN/CORBIS.
unconstitutional. He and the others wished to
prevent the amendments from affecting the
1976 election.
The provisions in question were: (1) limiting contributions by individuals, groups, or
political committees to candidates and expenditures in support of a “clearly identified candidate” by individuals or groups; (2) requiring
detailed record keeping of contributions and
expenditures by political committees and disclosing the source of every contribution and
expenditure over $100; (3) establishing a public
campaign funding system for political parties;
and (4) creating an eight-member commission,
the FEC, to enforce the act and permitting a
majority of those members to be selected by
Congress.
For the most part, the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia rejected Buckley’s constitutional attacks
on FECA. Buckley and the others took their case to the U.S. Supreme
Court.
The First Amendment’s broad protection
The Supreme Court ruling was complex, with justices agreeing to and
dissenting to various parts. However, they did agree on certain basic
issues.
First, the Court found contribution limits to be a proper means to
prevent candidates from becoming too reliant on large contributors and
their influence. However, in the part of the decision that would have the
most far-reaching effect, the Court ruled that the act’s expenditure
restrictions on political committees was unconstitutional. If individuals,
groups, or political committees operated independently of the candidates
or of the candidate’s election committees, they had the right to freely
spend to support a candidate. For example, individuals or groups, acting
on their own, could purchase television time to explain their views on
why a certain candidate should be elected. The Court found FECA’s
limits on expenditures a direct violation of First Amendment guarantees
of freedom of political expression. The amendment declares, “Congress
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Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech….” The Court
observed,
The Act’s contribution and expenditure limits operate in an area of the
most fundamental First Amendment activities. Discussion of public
issues and debate on the qualifications of candidates are integral to the
operation of the system of government established by our Constitution. The First Amendment affords [gives] the broadest possible protection to such political expression in order to assure unfettered [free]
exchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes
desired by the people.
The Court noted that “virtually every means of communicating ideas
in today’s mass society requires the expenditure of money.” Chief Justice
William Rehnquist equated free speech with the spending of money to
promote political views. He wrote,
A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on
political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the
quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed,
the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.
As long as expenditures were not funneled through the candidate or
the candidate’s campaign, they would be allowed.
Secondly, the Court upheld the record keeping and disclosure provisions of FECA. The Court found that the provisions served an important
government purpose in informing the public as to who contributes and
acted to prevent corruption of the political process.
Thirdly, the Court supported the provision authorizing new measures to promote public funding of presidential campaigns. An example
would be checking a box on personal income tax forms indicating that
taxpayers will allow a few dollars of their tax bill to go to public campaign
funding. The Court saw this provision as furthering First Amendment
values by using public monies to encourage political debate.
Fourth, the Court held unconstitutional the provision allowing Congress to select the majority of the members of FEC. The Court based this
decision on the Appointments Clause of Article II, Section 2, part 2, of
the U.S. Constitution. The Clause provides that the president shall
appoint, with the Senate’s advice and consent, all “officers of the United
States, whose appointments are not … otherwise provided for….”
Therefore, Congress could not assume a responsibility that belongs to the
president.
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Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
Why the grandmother walked
Importantly, Buckley legalized unlimited independent expenditures by
wealthy individuals and groups. Similarly, the Court in First National
Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) viewed spending to express political
views “the type of speech indispensable to decision making in a
democracy.”
In 1979 further amendments to FECA lifted spending limits on
money given directly to political parties if it was to be used for activities
such as volunteer efforts, voter registration, and for campaign materials.
This money, known as “soft money,” still could not go to specific candidates or to the candidates’ election committees but could go, for
example, to the Democratic Party as a whole.
An unexpected outcome of the 1970s campaign finance reforms was
“political action committees,” commonly called PACs. PACs are formed
by corporations, labor groups, and other special interest groups to influence elections in hope of special favors. Operating completely independent of candidates or candidate election committees, they collect and
pool contributions with their own money to be spent in support of a
favorite candidate. Together with the Supreme Court rulings, the “soft
money” amendments, and the incredible expense of campaigning, PACs
quickly seized the opportunity to independently spend millions in support of candidates they believed would help their causes. For example,
by March of 2000 in the 2000 presidential campaign, Common Cause,
an organization active in campaign finance reform efforts, reported
that both the Democratic and Republican parties had received over
$50 million in soft money donations. Many feared that the voice of the
common citizen could hardly be heard anymore. McCain commented,
“The founding fathers must be spinning in their graves,” given the influence of the special interest groups. Only new, dramatic campaign finance
reform could alter the situation. This is why in 2000 the grandmother
walked to Washington, D.C.
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 amended the FECA.
Also known as the McCain-Feingold Act (named after McCain and U.S.
senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin), the law heightened the role of
soft money and increased the number of so-called issue advocacy ads that
show a candidate’s supposed strength or weakness as it relates to the
issue. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission that while corporations may not make
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Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
direct contributions to campaigns, the funding of ads and broadcasts are
a form protected speech under the First Amendment.
For more information
Federal Election Commission. www.fec.gov (accessed on December 9, 2010).
Gais, Thomas. Improper Influence: Campaign Finance Law, Political Interest
Groups, and the Problem of Equality. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1996.
Smith, Melissa M., Glenda C. Williams, Larry Powell, and Gary A. Copeland.
Campaign Finance Reform: The Political Shell Game. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.
Utter, Glenn H., and Ruth Ann Strickland. Campaign and Election Reform: A
Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008.
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