5 campaigns for political office.” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 15 (1976) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Amendment “protects political association as well as political expression.” Id.; see also NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 460 (1958). In analyzing the interaction of the First Amendment and campaign finance laws, the Court has articulated several overarching principles of relevance here. First, the Court has held that campaign contributions and expenditures constitute “speech” within the protection of the First Amendment. In Buckley, the foundational case, the Court definitively ruled that “contribution and expenditure limitations operate in an area of the most fundamental First Amendment activities.” 424 U.S. at 14. The Court has never strayed from that cardinal tenet, notwithstanding some passionate objections. See, e.g., Nixon v. Shrink Mo. Gov’t PAC, 528 U.S. 377, 398 (2000) (Stevens, J., concurring) (“Money is property; it is not speech.”); J. Skelly Wright, Politics and the Constitution: Is Money Speech?, 85 YALE L.J. 1001 (1976). Second, the Court has ruled that the Government cannot limit campaign contributions and expenditures to achieve “equalization” – that is, it cannot restrict the speech of some so that others might have equal voice or influence in the electoral process. In perhaps the most important sentence in the Court’s entire campaign finance jurisprudence, Buckley stated: “[T]he concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment.” 424 U.S. at 48-49. The Court added that the Government’s interest in “equalizing the relative ability of