[T]he first [campaign financing] enactment responded to President Theodore Roosevelt’s call for legislation forbidding all contributions by corporations “‘to any political committee or for any political purpose.’” Ibid. The resulting 1907 statute completely banned corporate contributions of “money . . . in connection with” any federal election. Tillman Act, ch. 420, 34 Stat. 864. Congress soon amended the statute to require the public disclosure of certain contributions and expenditures and to place “maximum limits on the amounts that congressional candidates could spend in seeking nomination and election.” Automobile Workers, supra, at 575-76. In 1925 Congress [enacted the Federal Corrupt Practices Act, which] extended the prohibition of “contributions” “to include ‘anything of value,’ and made acceptance of a corporate contribution as well as the giving of such a contribution a crime.” Fed. Election Comm’n v. Nat’l Right to Work Comm., 459 U.S. 197, 209 (1982). During the debates preceding that amendment, a leading Senator characterized “‘the apparent hold on political parties which business interests and certain organizations seek and sometimes obtain by reason of liberal campaign contributions’” as “‘one of the great political evils of the time.’” Automobile Workers, supra, at 576 (quoting 65 Cong. Rec. 9507-9508 (1924)). We upheld the amended statute against a constitutional challenge, observing that “[t]he power of Congress to protect the election of President and Vice President from corruption being clear, the choice of means to that end presents a question primarily addressed to the judgment of Congress.” Burroughs v. United States, 290 U.S. 534, 547 (1934). Congress’ historical concern with the “political potentialities of wealth” and their “untoward consequences for 203

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