The Court of Appeals upheld the 1974 amendments almost in their entirety. It concluded that the clear and compelling interest in preserving the integrity of the electoral process provided a sufficient basis for sustaining the substantive provisions of the Act. The court’s opinion relied heavily on findings that large contributions facilitated access to public officials and described methods of evading the contribution limits that had enabled contributors of massive sums to avoid disclosure . . .. Id., at 837-41. The Court of Appeals upheld the provisions establishing contribution and expenditure limitations on the theory that they should be viewed as regulations of conduct rather than speech. Id., at 840-41. This Court, however, concluded that each set of limitations raised serious--though different--concerns under the First Amendment. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 14-23 (1976) (per curiam). We treated the limitations on candidate and individual expenditures as direct restraints on speech, but we observed that the contribution limitations, in contrast, imposed only “a marginal restriction upon the contributor’s ability to engage in free communication.” Id., at 20-22. Considering the “deeply disturbing examples” of corruption related to candidate contributions discussed in the Court of Appeals’ opinion, we determined that limiting contributions served an interest in protecting “the integrity of our system of representative democracy.” Id., at 26-27. In the end, the Act’s primary purpose –“to limit the actuality and appearance of corruption resulting from large individual financial contributions”– provided a constitutionally sufficient justification for the $1,000 contribution limitation.” Id., at 26. We prefaced our analysis of the $1,000 limitation on expenditures by observing that it broadly encompassed 206