Cite as: 540 U. S. 93 (2003)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
regulations, and so forth. Rather than permit this never-ending and self-justifying process, I would require that the Government explain why proposed speech restrictions are needed in light of actual Government interests, and, in particular, why the bribery laws are not sufficient.
B
But Title I falls even on the joint opinion's terms. This Court has held that "[t]he 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, 528 U. S., at 391. And three Members of today's majority have observed that "the opportunity for corruption" presented by "[u]nregulated 'soft money' contributions" is, "at best, attenuated." Colorado I, 518 U. S., at 616 (opinion of Breyer, J., joined by O'Connor and Souter, JJ.). Such an observation is quite clearly correct. A donation to a political party is a clumsy method by which to influence a candidate, as the party is free to spend the donation however it sees fit, and could easily spend the money as to provide no help to the candidate. And, a soft-money donation to a party will be of even less benefit to a candidate, "because of legal restrictions on how the money may be spent." Brief for FEC et al. in No. 02-1674 et al., p. 43. It follows that the defendants bear an especially heavy empirical burden in justifying Title I.
The evidence cited by the joint opinion does not meet this standard and would barely suffice for anything more than rational-basis review. The first category of the joint opinion's evidence is evidence that "federal officeholders have commonly asked donors to make soft-money donations to national and state committees solely in order to assist federal campaigns, including the officeholder's own." Ante, at 146 (internal quotation marks omitted). But to the extent that donors and federal officeholders have collaborated so that donors could give donations to a national party committee "for
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