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Opinion of the Court
Buckley, supra, at 27; see also Shrink Missouri, supra, at 390; Federal Election Comm'n v. National Conservative Political Action Comm., 470 U. S. 480, 496-497 (1985). Take away Congress' authority to regulate the appearance of undue influence and "the cynical assumption that large donors call the tune could jeopardize the willingness of voters to take part in democratic governance." Shrink Missouri, 528 U. S., at 390; see also id., at 401 (Breyer, J., concurring). And because the First Amendment does not require Congress to ignore the fact that "candidates, donors, and parties test the limits of the current law," Colorado II, 533 U. S., at 457, these interests have been sufficient to justify not only contribution limits themselves, but laws preventing the circumvention of such limits, id., at 456 ("[A]ll Members of the Court agree that circumvention is a valid theory of corruption").
"The quantum of empirical evidence needed to satisfy heightened judicial scrutiny of legislative judgments will vary up or down with the novelty and plausibility of the justification raised." Shrink Missouri, supra, at 391. The idea that large contributions to a national party can corrupt or, at the very least, create the appearance of corruption of federal candidates and officeholders is neither novel nor implausible. For nearly 30 years, FECA has placed strict dollar limits and source restrictions on contributions that individuals and other entities can give to national, state, and local party committees for the purpose of influencing a federal election. The premise behind these restrictions has been, and continues to be, that contributions to a federal candidate's party in aid of that candidate's campaign threaten to create—no less than would a direct contribution to the candidate—a sense of obligation. See Buckley, supra, at 38 (upholding FECA's $25,000 limit on aggregate yearly contributions to a candidate, political committee, and political party committee as a "quite modest restraint . . . to prevent evasion of the $1,000 contribution limitation" by, among
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