OCTOBER TERM, 1975
Per Curiam
424 U. S.
if that can be done consistent with the legislature's
purpose, to avoid the shoals of vagueness. United
States v. Harriss,supra,at 618; United States v. Rumely,
345 U. S., at 45.
In enacting the legislation under review Congress addressed broadly the problem of political campaign financing. It wished to promote full disclosure of campaignoriented spending to insure both the reality and the
appearance of the purity and openness of the federal election process."' Our task is to construe "for the purpose
of . . . influencing," incorporated in § 434 (e) through
the definitions of "contributions" and "expenditures," in
a manner that precisely furthers this goal.
In Part I we discussed what constituted a "contribution" for purposes of the contribution limitations set
forth in 18 U. S. C. § 608 (b) (1970 ed., Supp. IV)."0 3 We
construed that term to include not only contributions
made directly or indirectly to a candidate, political party,
or campaign committee, and contributions made to other
organizations or individuals but earmarked for political
purposes, but also all expenditures placed in cooperation
with or with the consent of a candidate, his agents, or an
authorized committee of the candidate. The definition
of "contribution" in § 431 (e) for disclosure purposes
parallels the definition in Title 18 almost word for word,
and we construe the former provision as we have the
latter. So defined, "contributions" have a sufficiently
close relationship to the goals of the Act, for they are
connected with a candidate or his campaign.
When we attempt to define "expenditure" in a similarly narrow way we encounter line-drawing problems
S. Rep. No. 92-96, p. 33 (1971); S. Rep. No. 93-689, pp. 1-2
(1974).
103 See n. 53, supra.
102
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