Having rejected the traditional justifications for campaign-finance laws, Post attempts to build a case for them around the First Amendment “value” or “principle” of “electoral integrity.” He defines “electoral integrity” as “a property of a system of representation, in which the public trusts that representatives will be attentive to pubic opinion.” Quoting the political theorist Hanna Pitkin, he argues that electoral integrity is “not any single action by any one participant, but the over-all structure and functioning of the system.”
Is this a better rationale? While asserting that maintenance of “electoral integrity” is “required” by the First Amendment, Post provides little guidance on how one recognizes when “electoral integrity” is in danger, other than by vague references to what “Americans” believe. Indeed the author makes clear that he does not wish to answer specific questions about the constitutionality of campaign-finance regulation in light of the principle of “electoral integrity”—not even the regulations at issue in Citizens United itself.
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