National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Comm’n · ¶138

Something I said before applies here too: None of this is a new insight, even if the mechanics of campaign finance are constantly evolving. See supra, at 11. Colorado II made basically the same point about the limits of earmarking rules, even before joint fundraising committees became so prominent. Those rules, the Court explained, can “reach only the most clumsy attempts to pass contributions through to candidates.” 533 U. S., at 462. To rely on them is thus to ignore the “practical difficulty” of “combating circumvention under actual political conditions.” Ibid. Just so. A Court serious about preventing that evasion, as Col orado II concluded (and as the Colorado II Court was), would refuse to treat “the earmarking provision as the outer limit of acceptable” regulation. Ibid.

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