4 B. These regulations give short shrift to the “purpose” of spending and so must be vacated. Indeed, we have already rejected the FEC’s view. Just fours years ago, in Shays v. FEC, we held FECA requires that “to qualify as ‘expenditure’ in the first place, spending must be undertaken ‘for the purpose of influencing’ a federal election” and agreed with the FEC that “time, place, and content may be critical indicia of communicative purpose.” 414 F.3d 76, 99 (D.C. Cir. 2005). Though a federal election-related intent is obvious . . . in statements urging voters to “elect” or “defeat” a specified candidate or party, the same may not be true of ads identifying a federal politician but focusing on pending legislation—a proposed budget, for example, or government reform initiatives—and appearing three years before the next election. Nor is such purpose necessarily evident in statements referring, say, to a Connecticut senator but running only in San Francisco media markets. Id. Shays confirms what FECA says: context matters. Referencing a federal candidate “may” reveal a federal purpose, but if an ad will not be aired to her constituents or if it will run “years before the next election,” then absent some persuasive indicia of a federal purpose, a reference by itself to Cir. 1996) (en banc) vac’d on other grounds 524 U.S. 1 (1998) (Buckley only “creat[es] a presumption” of a federal purpose).