190
Opinion of the Court
President, is targeted to the relevant electorate." 2 U. S. C. § 434(f)(3)(A)(i) (Supp. II).73
New FECA § 304(f)(3)(C) further provides that a communication is " 'targeted to the relevant electorate' " if it "can be received by 50,000 or more persons" in the district or State the candidate seeks to represent. 2 U. S. C. § 434(f)(3)(C).
In addition to setting forth this definition, BCRA's amendments to FECA § 304 specify significant disclosure requirements for persons who fund electioneering communications. BCRA's use of this new term is not, however, limited to the disclosure context: A later section of the Act (BCRA § 203, which amends FECA § 316(b)(2)) restricts corporations' and labor unions' funding of electioneering communications. Plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of the new term as it applies in both the disclosure and the expenditure contexts.
The major premise of plaintiffs' challenge to BCRA's use of the term "electioneering communication" is that Buckley drew a constitutionally mandated line between express advocacy and so-called issue advocacy, and that speakers possess an inviolable First Amendment right to engage in the latter category of speech. Thus, plaintiffs maintain, Congress cannot constitutionally require disclosure of, or regulate expenditures for, "electioneering communications" without making an exception for those "communications" that do not meet Buckley's definition of express advocacy.
That position misapprehends our prior decisions, for the express advocacy restriction was an endpoint of statutory interpretation, not a first principle of constitutional law. In
73 BCRA also provides a "backup" definition of "electioneering communication," which would become effective if the primary definition were "held to be constitutionally insufficient by final judicial decision to support the regulation provided herein." 2 U. S. C. § 434(f)(3)(A)(ii). We uphold all applications of the primary definition and accordingly have no occasion to discuss the backup definition.
Page: Index Previous 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007