100
Syllabus
tion of those fundraising apparatuses would follow. Plaintiffs' argument that § 323(d)'s solicitations ban cannot be squared with § 323(e), which allows federal candidates and officeholders to solicit limited soft-money donations to tax-exempt organizations engaged in federal election activities, is not persuasive. If § 323(d)'s solicitation restriction is otherwise valid, it is not rendered unconstitutional by the mere fact that Congress chose not to regulate the activities of another group as stringently as it might have. See National Right to Work, 459 U. S., at 210. Furthermore, the difference between the two provisions is explained by the fact that national party officers, unlike federal candidates and officeholders, remain free to solicit soft money on behalf of nonprofit organizations in their individual capacities. Given § 323(e)'s tight content, source, and amount restrictions on soft-money solicitations by federal candidates and officeholders, as well as the less rigorous standard of review, § 323(e)'s greater solicitation allowances do not render § 323(d)'s solicitation restriction facially invalid. Pp. 174-178. (2) Section 323(d)'s restriction on donations to qualifying § 501(c) or § 527 organizations is a valid anticircumvention measure insofar as it prohibits donations of funds not already raised in compliance with FECA. Absent such a restriction, state and local party committees could accomplish directly what the antisolicitation restrictions prevent them from doing indirectly—raising large sums of soft money to launder through tax-exempt organizations engaging in federal election activities. Although the ban raises overbreadth concerns if read to restrict donations from a party's federal account—i. e., funds already raised in compliance with FECA's source, amount, and disclosure limitations— these concerns do not require that the facial challenge be sustained, given this Court's obligation to construe a statute, if possible, in such a way as to avoid constitutional questions, see, e. g., Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62. Because the record does not compel the conclusion that Congress intended "donations" to include donations from a party's hard-money account, and because of the constitutional infirmities such an interpretation would raise, the Court narrowly construes § 323(d)'s ban to apply only to donations of funds not raised in compliance with FECA. Pp. 178-181. (e) New FECA § 323(e)—which, with many exceptions, forbids federal candidates and officeholders to "solicit, receive, direct, transfer, or spend" soft money in connection with federal elections, 2 U. S. C. § 441i(e)(1)(A), and limits their ability to do so for state and local elections, § 441i(e)(1)(B)—does not violate the First Amendment. No party seriously questions the constitutionality of the general ban on soft-money donations directly to federal candidates and officeholders and their agents. By severing the most direct link to the soft-money donor,
Page: Index 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007