Cite as: 533 U. S. 431 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm. v. Federal Election Comm'n, 518 U. S. 604 (1996) (Colorado I), we held that spending limits set by the Federal Election Campaign Act were unconstitutional as applied to the Colorado Republican Party's independent expenditures in connection with a senatorial campaign. We remanded for consideration of the party's claim that all limits on expenditures by a political party in connection with congressional campaigns are facially unconstitutional and thus unenforceable even as to spending coordinated with a candidate. Today we reject that facial challenge to the limits on parties' coordinated expenditures.
I
We first examined the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976) (per curiam), where we held that the Act's limitations on contributions to a candidate's election campaign were generally constitutional, but that limitations on election expenditures were not. Id., at 12-59. Later cases have respected this line between contributing and spending. See, e. g., Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U. S. 377, 386-388 (2000); Colorado I, supra, at 610, 614-615; Federal Election
of Hawaii, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Eliot Spitzer of New York, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, and William H. Sorrell of Vermont; for Common Cause et al. by Roger M. Witten, Daniel H. Squire, Donald J. Simon, and Fred Wertheimer; for the National Voting Rights Institute by David A. Wilson, John C. Bonifaz, Brenda Wright, and Gregory G. Luke; for Senator John F. Reed et al. by Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., and Deanne E. Maynard; and for Paul Allen Beck et al. by Burt Neuborne.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. by Mark J. Lopez, Steven R. Shapiro, and Joel M. Gora; for the California Republican Party by Charles H. Bell, Jr.; for the Missouri Republican Party by D. Bruce La Pierre and W. Bevis Schock; and for the National Republican Congressional Committee by Benjamin L. Ginsberg.
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