Cite as: 533 U. S. 431 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
the spending cannot be taken for granted, and money spent by an individual or PAC according to an arrangement with a candidate is therefore harder to classify. As already seen, Congress drew a functional, not a formal, line between contributions and expenditures when it provided that coordinated expenditures by individuals and nonparty groups are subject to the Act's contribution limits, 2 U. S. C. § 441a(a)(7)(B)(i); Colorado I, 518 U. S., at 611. In Buckley, the Court acknowledged Congress's functional classification, 424 U. S., at 46-47, and n. 53, and observed that treating coordinated expenditures as contributions "prevent[s] attempts to circumvent the Act through prearranged or coordinated expenditures amounting to disguised contributions," id., at 47. Buckley, in fact, enhanced the significance of this functional treatment by striking down independent expenditure limits on First Amendment grounds while upholding limitations on contributions (by individuals and nonparty groups), as defined to include coordinated expenditures, id., at 23-59.9
Colorado I addressed the FEC's effort to stretch the functional treatment of coordinated expenditures further than the plain application of the statutory definition. As we said, the FEC argued that parties and candidates are coupled so closely that all of a party's expenditures on an election campaign are coordinated with its candidate; because Buckley had treated some coordinated expenditures like contribu(2000) (Kennedy, J., dissenting) ("I would leave open the possibility that Congress, or a state legislature, might devise a system in which there are some limits on both expenditures and contributions, thus permitting officeholders to concentrate their time and efforts on official duties rather than on fundraising"); id., at 405 (Breyer, J., concurring) ("Suppose Buckley denies the political branches sufficient leeway to enact comprehensive solutions to the problems posed by campaign finance. If so, like Justice Kennedy, I believe the Constitution would require us to reconsider Buckley").
9 As noted, n. 6, supra, the Party Expenditure Provision itself was not challenged on First Amendment grounds in Buckley, supra, at 58, n. 66.
443
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