280
Opinion of Thomas, J.
tional question addressed head on.12 Indeed, the exceedingly narrow reading of the relevant language in Buckley is far from mandated by the text; it is, in fact, a highly strained reading. " '[A]ny expenditure . . . relative to a clearly identified candidate,' " id., at 41, would be better read to cover, for instance, any expenditure for an advertisement aired close to an election that is "intended to influence the voters' decisions and ha[s] that effect," a standard apparently endorsed by the joint opinion as being sufficiently "equivalent" to express advocacy to justify its regulation. Ante, at 206. By deliberately adopting a strained and narrow reading of the statutory text and then striking down the provision in question for being too narrow, the Court made clear that regulation of nonexpress advocacy was strictly forbidden.
This reading is confirmed by other portions of Buckley and by other cases. For instance, in limiting FECA's disclosure provisions to expenditures involving express advocacy, the Court noted that it gave such a narrowing interpretation "[t]o insure that the reach of [the disclosure provision] is not impermissibly broad." 424 U. S., at 80 (emphasis added). If overbreadth were a concern in limiting the scope of a disclosure provision, it surely was equally a concern in the limitation of an actual cap on expenditures. And, in MCFL, the Court arguably eliminated any ambiguity remaining in Buckley when it explicitly stated that the narrowing interpretations taken in Buckley were necessary "in order to avoid problems of overbreadth." MCFL, 479 U. S., at 248. The joint opinion's attempt to explain away MCFL's uncomfortable language is unpersuasive. The joint opinion emphasizes that the MCFL Court "held that a 'similar con-12 After all, the constitutional avoidance doctrine counsels us to adopt constructions of statutes to "avoid decision of constitutional questions," not to deliberately create constitutional questions. United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U. S. 363, 373 (1971); see also United States ex rel. Attorney General v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U. S. 366, 408 (1909).
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