## Facts

- Congress enacted the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) to address perceived circumvention of federal campaign-finance limits through party “soft money” and broadcast “issue ads” aired close to elections.
- BCRA Title I restricted national party committees from raising or spending nonfederal (“soft money”) funds and limited related activities by state and local party committees.
- BCRA also restricted federal candidates and officeholders from soliciting, receiving, directing, transferring, or spending soft money.
- BCRA Title II regulated “electioneering communications,” including limits on the use of corporate and union general treasury funds for certain broadcast ads naming federal candidates shortly before elections.
- Senator Mitch McConnell and numerous political parties, officeholders, and advocacy groups brought facial constitutional challenges to multiple BCRA provisions.
- BCRA required expedited review: a three-judge district court in the District of Columbia heard consolidated challenges, upheld some provisions, invalidated others, and stayed its judgment for direct Supreme Court review.

## Issues

1. Whether BCRA’s soft-money restrictions on political parties and federal candidates/officeholders exceeded Congress’s election-regulatory authority and violated the First Amendment.
2. Whether BCRA’s regulation of electioneering communications, including limits on corporate and union treasury-funded broadcast ads near elections, violated the First Amendment.
3. Whether particular ancillary provisions (including a ban on contributions by minors and a party “choice provision” affecting coordinated and independent spending) were constitutional.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court, in a fragmented set of opinions, upheld most of BCRA and ruled largely for the Federal Election Commission.
- The Court upheld BCRA’s principal soft-money restrictions, treating them as permissible measures to prevent corruption and the appearance of corruption and to prevent circumvention of valid contribution limits.
- The Court upheld core provisions regulating electioneering communications, accepting regulation keyed to the function and timing of election-related broadcast ads rather than limiting regulation to ads using express advocacy “magic words.”
- The Court invalidated certain provisions, including BCRA’s ban on contributions by minors and the party “choice provision” limiting certain combinations of coordinated and independent party expenditures after nomination.

## Legal Principles

- Preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption is a sufficiently important governmental interest to justify closely drawn limits on campaign contributions and related mechanisms used to evade those limits.
- Congress may regulate political party fundraising and spending structures to prevent circumvention of federal contribution limits through nonfederal funds routed via parties and candidates.
- The Constitution does not require campaign-finance regulation to be confined to communications containing explicit words of electoral advocacy; Congress may address election-related broadcast communications that function as the practical equivalent of express advocacy, especially when tied to pre-election timing windows.
- Restrictions must be appropriately tailored; overinclusive bans (such as prohibiting all contributions by minors) can fail constitutional scrutiny even within a broader, valid regulatory scheme.

## Conclusion

The Court largely sustained BCRA’s central reforms—limiting party soft money and regulating electioneering communications—as permissible anti-corruption and anti-circumvention measures consistent with the First Amendment, while striking discrete provisions that were insufficiently tailored.


McConnell v. Federal Election Comm'n, 540 U.S. 93 (2003)