Cite as: 540 U. S. 93 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
317, this provision does not prohibit a state or local candidate from advertising that he has received a federal officeholder's endorsement.71
The second argument, that soft-money contributions to state and local candidates for "public communications" do not corrupt or appear to corrupt federal candidates, ignores both the record in this litigation and Congress' strong interest in preventing circumvention of otherwise valid contribution limits. The proliferation of sham issue ads has driven the soft-money explosion. Parties have sought out every possible way to fund and produce these ads with soft money: They have labored to bring them under the FEC's allocation regime; they have raised and transferred soft money from national to state party committees to take advantage of favorable allocation ratios; and they have transferred and solicited funds to tax-exempt organizations for production of such ads. We will not upset Congress' eminently reasonable prediction that, with these other avenues no longer available, state and local candidates and officeholders will become the next conduits for the soft-money funding of sham issue advertising. We therefore uphold § 323(f) against plaintiffs' First Amendment challenge.72
71 See 148 Cong. Rec. S2143 (Mar. 20, 2002) (statement of Sen. Feingold) (Section 323(f) does not prohibit "spending non-Federal money to run advertisements that mention that [state or local candidates] have been endorsed by a Federal candidate or say that they identify with a position of a named Federal candidate, so long as those advertisements do not support, attack, promote or oppose the Federal candidate").
72 Justice Kennedy faults our "unwillingness" to confront that "Title I's entirety . . . look[s] very much like an incumbency protection plan," citing § 323(e), which provides officeholders and candidates with greater opportunities to solicit soft money than §§ 323(a) and (d) permit party officers. Post, at 306, 307. But, § 323(e) applies to both officeholders and candidates and allows only minimally greater opportunities for solicitation out of regard for the fact that candidates and officeholders, unlike party officers, can never step out of their official roles. Supra, at 183; 2 U. S. C. § 441i(e). Any concern that Congress might opportunistically
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