156
Opinion of the Court
officeholders place substantial value on the soft-money contribution themselves, without regard to their end use, or that national committees are able to exert considerable control over federal officeholders. See, e. g., App. 1196-1198 (Expert Report of Donald P. Green, Yale University) (hereinafter Green Expert Report) ("Once elected to legislative office, public officials enter an environment in which political parties-in-government control the resources crucial to subsequent electoral success and legislative power. Political parties organize the legislative caucuses that make committee assignments"); App. 1298 (Krasno & Sorauf Expert Report) (indicating that officeholders' reelection prospects are significantly influenced by attitudes of party leadership). Either way, large soft-money donations to national party committees are likely to buy donors preferential access to federal officeholders no matter the ends to which their contributions are eventually put. As discussed above, Congress had sufficient grounds to regulate the appearance of undue influence associated with this practice. The Government's strong interests in preventing corruption, and in particular the appearance of corruption, are thus sufficient to justify subjecting all donations to national parties to the source, amount, and disclosure limitations of FECA.51
51 The close relationship of federal officeholders and candidates to their parties answers not only The Chief Justice's concerns about § 323(a), but also his fear that our analysis of § 323's remaining provisions bespeaks no limiting principle. Post, at 355-356 (dissenting opinion). As set forth in our discussion of those provisions, the record demonstrates close ties between federal officeholders and the state and local committees of their parties. That close relationship makes state and local parties effective conduits for donors desiring to corrupt federal candidates and officeholders. Thus, in upholding §§ 323(b), (d), and (f), we rely not only on the fact that they regulate contributions used to fund activities influencing federal elections, but also that they regulate contributions to, or at the behest of, entities uniquely positioned to serve as conduits for corruption. We agree with The Chief Justice that Congress could not regulate financial contributions to political talk show hosts or newspaper editors on the sole
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