Buckley (1976): The first, and most important, campaign financing
case, in which the Supreme Court examined whether or not the Federal
Campaign Act of 1971, as amended in 1974 (shortly after Watergate),
violated the First Am. of financial contributors.  Dave says Buckley
is one of the most poorly written and reasoned cases of the Supreme
Court. Of the several provisions of the Act whose constitutionality
the Court reviewed in Buckley, two are of concern to us here: (1) the
Act’s limitation on individual political contributions to $1,000 to
any single candidate per election (with a corollary $25,000 limit on
aggregate contributions by any one individual in any year); and (2)
its limitations on expenditures, including a $1,000-per-year limit on
independent expenditures by individuals and groups on behalf of a
“clearly identified” candidate, various limits on expenditures by a
candidate from personal or family funds, and various limits on total
campaign spending.  Was the Act a violation of contributors’ First
Am. rights?