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Opinion of the Court
Victory Plans, whereby the RNC acts in concert with the state and local committees of a given State to plan and implement joint, full-ticket fundraising and electioneering programs. See App. 693, 694-697 (declaration of John Peschong, RNC Western Reg. Political Dir. (describing the Republican Victory Plans)). The political parties assert that § 323(a) outlaws any participation in Victory Plans by RNC officers, including merely sitting down at a table and engaging in collective decisionmaking about how soft money will be solicited, received, and spent. Such associational burdens, they argue, are too great for the First Amendment to bear.
We are not persuaded by this argument because it hinges on an unnaturally broad reading of the terms "spend," "receive," "direct," and "solicit." 2 U. S. C. § 441i(a) (Supp. II). Nothing on the face of § 323(a) prohibits national party officers, whether acting in their official or individual capacities, from sitting down with state and local party committees or candidates to plan and advise how to raise and spend soft money. As long as the national party officer does not personally spend, receive, direct, or solicit soft money, § 323(a) permits a wide range of joint planning and electioneering activity. Intervenor-defendants, the principal drafters and proponents of the legislation, concede as much. Brief for Intervenor-Defendants Sen. John McCain et al. in No. 02-1674 et al., p. 22 ("BCRA leaves parties and candidates free to coordinate campaign plans and activities, political messages, and fundraising goals with one another"). The FEC's current definitions of § 323(a)'s terms are consistent with that view. See, e. g., 11 CFR § 300.2(m) (2002) (defining "solicit" as "to ask . . . another person" (emphasis added)); § 300.2(n) (defining "direct" as "to ask a person who has expressed an intent to make a contribution . . . to make that contribution . . . including through a conduit or intermediary" (emphasis added)); § 300.2(c) (laying out the factors
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