00-191 FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee

By: dmc-admin//July 2, 2001//

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“There is no significant functional difference between a party’s coordinated expenditure and a direct party contribution to the candidate, and there is good reason to expect that a party’s right of unlimited coordinated spending would attract increased contributions to parties to finance exactly that kind of spending. Coordinated expenditures of money donated to a party are tailor-made to undermine contribution limits. Therefore the choice here is not, as in Buckley and Colorado I, between a limit on pure contributions and pure expenditures. The choice is between limiting contributions and limiting expenditures whose special value as expenditures is also the source of their power to corrupt. Congress is entitled to its choice.”

Reversed.

Local Effect:

The issue has not previously been considered by the Seventh Circuit.

Souter, J.,; Thomas, J., dissenting.

Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, 213 F.3d 1221.

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