Cite as: 609 U. S. ____ (2026)
5
KAGAN, J., dissenting
of the base limits,” it will satisfy constitutional scrutiny.
McCutcheon, 572 U. S., at 218. Today’s majority reaffirms
that point. See ante, at 27. For example, it describes “earmarking rules” (of which more later) as a “constitutionally
permissible way for the Government to prohibit circumvention of the base limits on contributions to candidates.” Ante,
at 16 (citing McCutcheon, 572 U. S., at 222–223). Our difference concerns only—though this is no small “only”—
whether the Government’s strong interest in preventing
circumvention of the base limits also justifies the coordinated-expenditure caps at issue here.
B
The anti-circumvention principle just noted should resolve this case in favor of the caps’ constitutionality. A contribution limit of $7,000 will do no good if a donor can use a
political party as a conduit to give the candidate hundreds
of thousands more. Congress sought to prevent that kind
of evasion through the limits on a party’s coordinated expenditures; and those limits are well-tailored to the statutory mission. That is all the First Amendment demands—
which is why this Court upheld the same restriction against
the same challenge 25 years ago in Colorado II.1
Consider first the varied forms a coordinated expenditure
may take. The majority offers one example, which is least
harmful to its cause but not the standard fare. A party, it
——————
1 Contrary to the majority’s framing, see ante, at 14–15, the question
here (which, to repeat, we have answered before) is not whether the caps
on a party’s coordinated expenditures are permissible to “prevent circumvention of the base limits” via contributions to a party that are “earmarked (i.e., directed) to a candidate.” The question, instead, is whether
the caps are permissible to prevent circumvention of the base limits by
any means. It is the circumvention of the base limits that is the focus of
the constitutional inquiry, regardless of the means by which that takes
place. And as I will discuss later, the means by which donors can use
parties to circumvent base limits (absent the caps) need not rely on earmarking at all. See infra, at 15–17.
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