Ramtin Arablui and Randa Abdelfattah

The case is known as Buckley v. Vallejo.

James Buckley is a conservative politician.

He was a former U.S.

senator.

He is one of a bunch of politicians that challenges the FICA amendments, the whole campaign finance system under the First Amendment.

Buckley argued that limiting the amount of money campaigns can raise and spend limited what those campaigns could say to potential voters.

To Buckley and others, money was speech, and the First Amendment guarantees that right to free speech.

On the government side, attorneys argued that the caps on spending were justified in order to prevent corruption rather than to censor speech.

So what is the ruling that comes out of this case today?

And how does it sort of play out over the next several decades?

One is it says campaign finance is First Amendment activity and it's protected by the First Amendment.

Basically, because reaching people takes money, restrictions on spending are effectively restrictions on speech.

This was a huge deal, and maybe an even bigger deal today.

This is the moment when the Supreme Court decided that.

The government can regulate how much I can give to your campaign, but it can't stop me from spending a million dollars on what I believe.

And if that happens to be saying how great a candidate you are, that's okay.

It can't restrict that.

So free speech.

You can spend whatever you want to say whatever you think, but you can't contribute whatever you want directly to a campaign because that could lead to corruption, a la Teddy Roosevelt or Richard Nixon.

The court decided in Buckley, that's a big enough worry in a democracy that the government should be able to regulate that.