The Supreme Court has held that campaign contributions are a form of political speech. Why was this ruling significant?
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Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), is a U.S. constitutional law Supreme Court case on campaign finance. A majority of justices held that limits on election spending in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 § 608 are unconstitutional. In a per curiam (by the Court) opinion, they ruled that expenditure limits contravene the First Amendment provision on freedom of speech because a restriction on spending for political communication necessarily reduces the quantity of expression. It limited disclosure provisions and limited the Federal Election Commission's power. Justice Byron White dissented in part and wrote that Congress had legitimately recognized unlimited election spending "as a mortal danger against which effective preventive and curative steps must be taken".[1]