Cite as: 528 U. S. 377 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
In Buckley, we specifically rejected the contention that $1,000, or any other amount, was a constitutional minimum below which legislatures could not regulate. As indicated above, we referred instead to the outer limits of contribution regulation by asking whether there was any showing that the limits were so low as to impede the ability of candidates to "amas[s] the resources necessary for effective advocacy," 424 U. S., at 21. We asked, in other words, whether the contribution limitation was so radical in effect as to render political association ineffective, drive the sound of a candidate's voice below the level of notice, and render contributions pointless. Such being the test, the issue in later cases cannot be truncated to a narrow question about the power of the dollar, but must go to the power to mount a campaign with all the dollars likely to be forthcoming. As Judge Gibson put it, the dictates of the First Amendment are not mere functions of the Consumer Price Index. 161 F. 3d, at 525 (dissenting opinion).
D
The dissenters in this case think our reasoning evades the real issue. Justice Thomas chides us for "hiding behind" Buckley, post, at 422, and Justice Kennedy faults us for seeing this case as "a routine application of our analysis" in Buckley instead of facing up to what he describes as the consequences of Buckley, post, at 405. Each dissenter would overrule Buckley and thinks we should do the same.
The answer is that we are supposed to decide this case. Shrink and Fredman did not request that Buckley be overruled; the furthest reach of their arguments about the law was that subsequent decisions already on the books had enhanced the State's burden of justification beyond what Buckley required, a proposition we have rejected as mistaken.
III
There is no reason in logic or evidence to doubt the sufficiency of Buckley to govern this case in support of the Mis-
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