394
Opinion of the Court
invalidating the limits Proposition A imposed, identified a $420,000 contribution to candidates in northern Missouri from a political action committee linked to an investment bank, and three scandals, including one in which a state representative was "accused of sponsoring legislation in exchange for kickbacks," and another in which Missouri's former attorney general pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to misuse state property, id., at 642, and n. 10, after being indicted for using a state workers' compensation fund to benefit campaign contributors. And although majority votes do not, as such, defeat First Amendment protections, the statewide vote on Proposition A certainly attested to the perception relied upon here: "[A]n overwhelming 74 percent of the voters of Missouri determined that contribution limits are necessary to combat corruption and the appearance thereof." Carver v. Nixon, 882 F. Supp. 901, 905 (WD Mo.), rev'd, 72 F. 3d 633 (CA8 1995); see also 5 F. Supp. 2d, at 738, n. 7. There might, of course, be need for a more extensive evidentiary documentation if respondents had made any showing of their own to cast doubt on the apparent implications of Buckley's evidence and the record here, but the closest respondents come to challenging these conclusions is their invocation of academic studies said to indicate that large contributions to public officials or candidates do not actually result in changes in candidates' positions. Brief for Respondents Shrink Missouri Government PAC et al. 41; Smith, Money Talks: Speech, Corruption, Equality, and Campaign Finance, 86 Geo. L. J. 45, 58 (1997); Smith, Faulty Assumptions and Undemocratic Consequences of Campaign Finance Reform, 105 Yale L. J. 1049, 1067-1068 (1995). Other studies, however, point the other way. Reply Brief for Respondent Bray 4-5; F. Sorauf, Inside Campaign Finance 169 (1992); Hall & Wayman, Buying Time: Moneyed Interests and the Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees, 84 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 797 (1990); D. Magleby & C. Nelson, The Money Chase 78 (1990). Given the conflict among these publica-
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