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Opinion of the Court
The solicitation, transfer, and use of soft money thus enabled parties and candidates to circumvent FECA's limitations on the source and amount of contributions in connection with federal elections.
Issue Advertising
In Buckley we construed FECA's disclosure and reporting requirements, as well as its expenditure limitations, "to reach only funds used for communications that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate." 424 U. S., at 80 (footnote omitted). As a result of that strict reading of the statute, the use or omission of "magic words" such as "Elect John Smith" or "Vote Against Jane Doe" marked a bright statutory line separating "express advocacy" from "issue advocacy." See id., at 44, n. 52. Express advocacy was subject to FECA's limitations and could be financed only using hard money. The political parties, in other words, could not use soft money to sponsor ads that used any magic words, and corporations and unions could not fund such ads out of their general treasuries. So-called issue ads, on the other hand, not only could be financed with soft money, but could be aired without disclosing the identity of, or any other information about, their sponsors.
While the distinction between "issue" and express advocacy seemed neat in theory, the two categories of advertisements proved functionally identical in important respects. Both were used to advocate the election or defeat of clearly identified federal candidates, even though the so-called issue ads eschewed the use of magic words.16 Little difference
butions), or an outside group that is planning on doing an independent expenditure or issue advertisement to help the candidate's campaign.' " Id., at 479 (Kollar-Kotelly, J.).
16 Id., at 532-537 (Kollar-Kotelly, J.); id., at 875-879 (Leon, J.). As the former chair of one major advocacy organization's PAC put it: " 'It is foolish to believe there is any practical difference between issue advocacy and advocacy of a political candidate. What separates issue advocacy and political advocacy is a line in the sand drawn on a windy day.' " Id., at 536-537 (Kollar-Kotelly, J.) (quoting Tanya K. Metaksa, Opening Remarks
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