Cite as: 540 U. S. 93 (2003)
Syllabus
the ban is closely drawn to prevent the corruption or the appearance of corruption of federal candidates and officeholders. The solicitation restrictions are valid anticircumvention measures. Even before BCRA's passage, federal candidates and officeholders solicited donations to state and local parties, as well as tax-exempt organizations, in order to help their own, as well as their party's, electoral cause. See Colorado II, supra, at 458. The incentives to do so will only increase with Title I's restrictions on the raising and spending of soft money by national, state, and local parties. Section 323(e) addresses these concerns while accommodating the individual speech and associational rights of federal candidates and officeholders. Pp. 181-184.
(f) New FECA § 323(f)—which forbids state and local candidates or officeholders to raise and spend soft money to fund ads and other "public communications" that promote or attack federal candidates, 2 U. S. C. § 441i(f)—is a valid anticircumvention provision. The section places no cap on the funds that such candidates can spend on any activity, but, rather, limits only the source and amount of contributions that they can draw on to fund expenditures that directly impact federal elections. And, by regulating only contributions used to fund "public communications," the section focuses narrowly on those soft-money donations with the greatest potential to corrupt or give rise to the appearance of corruption of federal candidates and officeholders. Plaintiffs' principal arguments against the section—(1) that the definition of "public communications" as communications that support or attack a clearly identified federal candidate is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad; and (2) that soft-money contributions to state and local candidates for "public communications" do not corrupt or appear to corrupt federal candidates—are rejected. Pp. 184-185. 2. Several plaintiffs argue unpersuasively that BCRA Title I exceeds Congress' Election Clause authority to "make or alter" rules governing federal elections, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 4, and violates constitutional federalism principles by impairing the States' authority to regulate their own elections. In examining federal Acts for Tenth Amendment infirmity, the Court focuses on whether States and state officials are commandeered to carry out federal regulatory schemes. See, e. g., Printz v. United States, 521 U. S. 898. By contrast, Title I only regulates private parties' conduct, imposing no requirements upon States or state officials. And, because it does not expressly pre-empt state legislation, Title I leaves States free to enforce their own restrictions on state electoral campaign financing. Moreover, while this Court has policed the absolute boundaries of Congress' Article I power, see, e. g., United States v. Morrison, 529 U. S. 598, plaintiffs offer no reason to believe that Congress has overstepped its Elections Clause power in enacting BCRA.
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