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REPUBLICAN FEDERAL CAMPAIGN COMM. Opinion of the Court
are thus necessarily the instruments of some contributors whose object is not to support the party's message or to elect party candidates across the board, but rather to support a specific candidate for the sake of a position on one narrow issue, or even to support any candidate who will be obliged to the contributors.14
Parties thus perform functions more complex than simply electing candidates; whether they like it or not, they act as agents for spending on behalf of those who seek to produce obligated officeholders. It is this party role, which functionally unites parties with other self-interested political actors, that the Party Expenditure Provision targets. This party role, accordingly, provides good reason to view limits on coordinated spending by parties through the same lens applied to such spending by donors, like PACs, that can use parties as conduits for contributions meant to place candidates under obligation.
FEC Disclosure Report, Search Results for AOL Time Warner Inc. Political Action Committee (June 20, 2001), http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/ com supopp/C00339291; FEC Disclosure Report, Search Results for Philip Morris Companies, Inc., Political Action Committee, supra.
14 We have long recognized Congress's concern with this reality of political life. For example, in United States v. Automobile Workers, 352 U. S. 567 (1957), Justice Frankfurter recounted Senator Robinson's explanation for the Federal Corrupt Practices Act's restriction of corporate campaign contributions:
" 'We all know . . . that one of the great political evils of the time is the apparent hold on political parties which business interests and certain organizations seek and sometimes obtain by reason of liberal campaign contributions. Many believe that when an individual or association of individuals makes large contributions for the purpose of aiding candidates of political parties in winning the elections, they expect, and sometimes demand, and occasionally, at least, receive, consideration by the beneficiaries of their contributions which not infrequently is harmful to the general public interest.' " Id., at 576 (quoting 65 Cong. Rec. 9507-9508 (1924)).
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