National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Comm’n · ¶136

Start with earmarking rules—both what they apply to and what they do not. As the majority explains, the law will treat a contribution to a party as instead a contribution to a candidate if the donor earmarks or otherwise directs the money in that direction. See ante, at 16. So if a donor giving money to a party says “I want you to send this on to John Smith,” that money will count as a contribution to John Smith, and will be subject to the base limit of $7,000 for donations to candidates. (Of course, that means the donor can only earmark funds up to $7,000.) But suppose the donor, with no such instruction, just sends a $550,000 check to the John Smith Victory Fund I have described above? That payment is, according to campaign finance law, all well and good: None of it counts as an earmark. So the mechanism I outlined above—the $550,00 is given to the Victory Fund, then gets disbursed to…

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