Buckley v. Valeo (1976) is the landmark Supreme Court decision that established the doctrine that money in elections is equivalent to speech.
The case concerned a challenge to various provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act which were passed by a bi-partisan Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal. In a 5-4 decision, the majority in Buckley upheld portions of the law that limited the size of donations to candidate campaigns but struck down its limits on expenditures as violations of the First Amendment. The Court later expanded this doctrine in cases like Citizens United v. FEC (2010) and McCutcheon v. FEC (2014). The Buckley ruling set the stage for unlimited spending in American elections.
American Promise is working to advance the For Our Freedom Amendment, which would end the Buckley v. Valeo doctrine and permanently restore the ability of Congress and the states to set the rules around money in politics.
Twenty-three states have already called on Congress to introduce the amendment, or one like it. You can help by signing the American Promise Citizen Pledge.
Buckley v. Valeo was the first major campaign finance decision in the history of the Supreme Court and remains the longest majority opinion the Court has ever produced. It remains as controversial today as it was when it was decided 50 years ago. The decision and the campaign finance doctrine it created are credited with making it difficult to regulate money in elections in the United States.
First, the majority’s holding that money is equivalent to speech departs from the Framers’ understanding of the freedom of speech and the role of the judiciary.
Second, the Court erred in making campaign finance exclusively a First Amendment question. Campaign finance affects other constitutional interests such as representative self-government, federalism, the integrity of the electoral process and the political equality of national persons. All of these constitutional interests, together with speech, should be considered when reviewing the constitutionality of a campaign finance law. Until we amend the Constitution, the interests of big political spenders will keep trumping the sovereign interests of the people.
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