Cite as: 572 U. S. ____ (2014) 11 Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. base limit. Id., at 38. The Court determined that circumvention could occur when an individual legally contributes “massive amounts of money to a particular candidate through the use of unearmarked contributions” to entities that are themselves likely to contribute to the candidate. Ibid. For that reason, the Court upheld the $25,000 aggregate limit. Although Buckley provides some guidance, we think that its ultimate conclusion about the constitutionality of the aggregate limit in place under FECA does not control here. Buckley spent a total of three sentences analyzing that limit; in fact, the opinion pointed out that the constitutionality of the aggregate limit “ha[d] not been separately addressed at length by the parties.” Ibid. We are now asked to address appellants’ direct challenge to the aggregate limits in place under BCRA. BCRA is a different statutory regime, and the aggregate limits it imposes operate against a distinct legal backdrop. Most notably, statutory safeguards against circumvention have been considerably strengthened since Buckley was decided, through both statutory additions and the introduction of a comprehensive regulatory scheme. With more targeted anticircumvention measures in place today, the indiscriminate aggregate limits under BCRA appear particularly heavy-handed. The 1976 FECA Amendments, for example, added another layer of base contribution limits. The 1974 version of FECA had already capped contributions from political committees to candidates, but the 1976 version added limits on contributions to political committees. This change was enacted at least “in part to prevent circumvention of the very limitations on contributions that this Court upheld in Buckley.” California Medical Assn. v. Federal Election Comm’n, 453 U. S. 182, 197–198 (1981) (plurality opinion); see also id., at 203 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Because