424
Thomas, J., dissenting
"politicians too compliant with the wishes of large contributors." Ante, at 389. "But precisely what the 'corruption' may consist of we are never told with assurance." National Conservative Political Action Comm., supra, at 498. Presumably, the majority does not mean that politicians should be free of attachments to constituent groups.9 And the majority does not explicitly rely upon the "harm" that the Court in Buckley rejected out of hand, namely, that speech could be regulated to equalize the voices of citizens. Buckley v. Valeo, supra, at 48-49. Instead, without bothering to offer any elaboration, much less justification, the majority permits vague and unenumerated harms to suffice as a compelling reason for the government to smother political speech.
In refashioning Buckley, the Court then goes on to weaken the requisite precision in tailoring, while at the same time representing that its fiat "do[es] not relax Buckley's standard." Ante, at 390, n. 4. The fact is that the majority rati-9 The Framers, of course, thought such attachments inevitable in a free society and that faction would infest the political process. As to controlling faction, James Madison explained, "There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests." The Federalist No. 10, p. 78 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). Contribution caps are an example of the first method, which Madison contemptuously dismissed: "It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency." Ibid. The Framers preferred a political system that harnessed such faction for good, preserving liberty while also ensuring good government. Rather than adopting the repressive "cure" for faction that the majority today endorses, the Framers armed individual citizens with a remedy. "If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote." Id., at 80.
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