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Opinion of Kennedy, J.
tect political speech for campaigns related to ballot measures. See generally Citizens Against Rent Control/ Coalition for Fair Housing v. Berkeley, 454 U. S. 290 (1981); First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765 (1978).
Section 323(b) also fails the narrow tailoring requirement because less burdensome regulatory options were available. The Government justifies the provision as an attempt to stop national parties from circumventing the soft-money allocation constraints they faced under the prior FECA regime. We are told that otherwise the national parties would let the state parties spend money on their behalf. If, however, the problem were avoidance of allocation rates, Congress could have made any soft money transferred by a national party to a state party subject to the allocation rates that governed the national parties' similar use of the money.
Nor is § 323(d) narrowly tailored. The provision, proscribing any solicitation or direction of funds, prohibits the parties from even distributing or soliciting regulated money (i. e., hard money). It is a complete ban on this category of speech. To prevent circumvention of contribution limits by imposing a complete ban on contributions is to burden the circumventing conduct more severely than the underlying suspect conduct could be burdened.
By its own terms, the statute prohibits speech that does not implicate federal elections. The provision prohibits any transfer to a § 527 organization, irrespective of whether the organization engages in federal election activity. This is unnecessary, as well, since Congress enacted a much narrower provision in § 323(a)(2) to prevent circumvention by the parties via control of other organizations. Section 323(a)(2) makes "any entity that is directly or indirectly . . . controlled by" the national parties subject to the same § 323(a) prohibitions as the parties themselves. 2 U. S. C. § 441i (Supp. II).
Section 323(f), too, is not narrowly tailored or even close
to it. It burdens a substantial body of speech and expres-
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