What is the Buckley v. Valeo case?
Buckley v. Valeo is the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision that sanctioned our current system of unlimited campaign spending. In 1974, Congress enacted a new campaign finance reform law that limited the amounts contributors could give, as well as the amount candidates could spend on campaigns. New York Senator James Buckley and others challenged the new law as unconstitutional. In Buckley v. Valeo, the Court upheld the limits on contributions to candidates, but ruled that limiting campaign spending violated the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee, basically equating money with speech. NVRI now serves as the leading force in the courts in seeking a reconsideration of the Supreme Court’s 1976 ruling on campaign spending limits.
