12 FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N v. TED CRUZ FOR SENATE KAGAN, J., dissenting 11. In Kentucky, two Governors loaned their campaigns millions of dollars, “only to be repaid after the election by contributors seeking no-bid contracts.” J. Moore, Campaign Finance Reform in Kentucky: The Race for Governor, 85 Ky. L. J. 723, 746 (1997). The scandal those transactions created led to a new state campaign-finance law similar to Section 304. In upholding that statute, a court more cognizant than this one about how corruption works explained that “heavily indebted candidates” were “easy bedfellows for quid pro quo contributors.” Wilkinson v. Jones, 876 F. Supp. 916, 930 (WD Ky. 1995). That is also true on the local level. In San Diego, to take just one instance, three city council members cast critical votes benefiting lobbyists who had raised funds to retire their campaign debts. See C. Gustafson, Lobbyists See Benefit From Three City Officials, San Diego Union-Tribune, June 13, 2009, p. A1.3 An empirical study in the record confirms the dangers of corruption shown in those examples. The study first found, based on data preceding Section 304’s enactment, that politicians carrying campaign debt were “significantly more likely” than their “debt-free counterparts” to “switch their votes” after receiving contributions from special interests. A. Ovtchinnikov & P. Valta, Debt in Political Campaigns (2020), in No. 1:19–cv–00908 (D DC, July 14, 2020), ECF —————— 3 The majority asserts without explanation that these and other similar examples involve not quid pro quo corruption, but only contributors’ exercise of their “greater influence” over candidates. Ante, at 16. Even accepting that distinction (as our caselaw does), the majority’s claim is hard to understand. Here is the quid in the examples: a donation paying off a successful candidate’s personal loan. And here is the quo: a government contract, or a key vote. However “vague” the “line between quid pro quo corruption and general influence,” ibid., those exchanges cross it. The majority must mean that the Government has not proved beyond a doubt that the trades in fact occurred. But again, that is the wrong standard given (1) the difficulty of such proof and (2) the significant risks of quid pro quo corruption inherent in the above fact patterns. See supra, at 10–11.