Cite as: 528 U. S. 377 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
campaign organization thus involves little direct restraint on his political communication, for it permits the symbolic expression of support evidenced by a contribution but does not in any way infringe the contributor's freedom to discuss candidates and issues." Id., at 20-21 (footnote omitted).
We thus said, in effect, that limiting contributions left communication significantly unimpaired.
We flagged a similar difference between expenditure and contribution limitations in their impacts on the association right. While an expenditure limit "precludes most associations from effectively amplifying the voice of their adherents," id., at 22 (thus interfering with the freedom of the adherents as well as the association, ibid.), the contribution limits "leave the contributor free to become a member of any political association and to assist personally in the association's efforts on behalf of candidates," ibid.; see also id., at 28. While we did not then say in so many words that different standards might govern expenditure and contribution limits affecting associational rights, we have since then said so explicitly in Federal Election Comm'n v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U. S. 238, 259-260 (1986): "We have consistently held that restrictions on contributions require less compelling justification than restrictions on independent spending." It has, in any event, been plain ever since Buckley that contribution limits would more readily clear the hurdles before them. Cf. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm. v. Federal Election Comm'n, 518 U. S. 604, 610 (1996) (opinion of Breyer, J.) (noting that in campaign finance case law, "[t]he provisions that the Court found constitutional mostly imposed contribution limits" (emphasis in original)). Thus, under Buckley's standard of scrutiny, a contribution limit involving "significant interference" with associational rights, 424 U. S., at 25 (internal quotation marks omitted), could survive if the Government demonstrated that contribution regulation was "closely drawn"
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