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Opinion of Thomas, J.
his position on agriculture subsidies." Both express a political opinion. Even a pure message of support, unadorned with reasons, is valuable to the democratic process.
In sum, unlike the Buckley Court, I believe that contribution limits infringe as directly and as seriously upon freedom of political expression and association as do expenditure limits. The protections of the First Amendment do not depend upon so fine a line as that between spending money to support a candidate or group and giving money to the candidate or group to spend for the same purpose. In principle, people and groups give money to candidates and other groups for the same reason that they spend money in support of those candidates and groups: because they share social, economic, and political beliefs and seek to have those beliefs affect governmental policy. I think that the Buckley framework for analyzing the constitutionality of campaign finance laws is deeply flawed. Accordingly, I would not employ it, as Justice Breyer and Justice Kennedy do.
B
Instead, I begin with the premise that there is no constitutionally significant difference between campaign contributions and expenditures: Both forms of speech are central to the First Amendment. Curbs on protected speech, we have repeatedly said, must be strictly scrutinized. See Federal Election Comm'n v. NCPAC, supra, at 501; Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition for Fair Housing v. Berkeley, 454 U. S., at 294; First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 786 (1978).7 I am convinced that under tradi-7 In Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976), the Court purported to scrutinize strictly the contribution provisions as well as the expenditure rules. See id., at 23 (FECA's contribution and expenditures limits "both implicate fundamental First Amendment interests"); id., at 25 (contribution limits, like expenditure limits, are " 'subject to the closest scrutiny' " (citation omitted)). It has not gone unnoticed, however, that we seemed more forgiving in our review of the contribution provisions than of the expenditure rules. See, e. g., California Medical Assn. v. Federal Election Comm'n,
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