Question
Which of the following is true of spending in politics?A. The Supreme Court has yet to address the issue of money in politics.B. The Supreme Court has restricted spending on politics.C. The Supreme Court has opposed restrictions on spending on politics.D. The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend unlimited amounts of money but unions may not.
Correct answer
C. The Supreme Court has opposed restrictions on spending on politics.
This is the best answer because major Supreme Court decisions have treated political expenditures as closely connected to protected political expression. The Court has invalidated important limits on how much candidates, individuals, corporations, or unions may spend on certain political communications, especially when the spending is independent of a candidate's campaign.
Why the other choices are incorrect
- A is false. The Court has repeatedly addressed campaign finance. Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United v. FEC are central examples.
- B is too broad and points in the wrong direction. In Buckley, the Court struck down expenditure ceilings while leaving several contribution and disclosure provisions in place.
- D is false. Citizens United concerned independent political expenditures by both corporations and unions. It did not create a corporation-only right while excluding unions.
Spending is not the same as contributing
A contribution transfers money to a candidate or political committee. An expenditure pays for political communication or activity. An independent expenditure expressly advocates an electoral result without coordination with a candidate.
The Court has generally permitted more regulation of direct contributions than of independent expenditures. Contribution limits can be justified as safeguards against corruption or its appearance. Limits on independent expenditures face greater constitutional difficulty because they directly restrict political communication without the same candidate-control relationship.
The important qualification
The correct choice does not mean every campaign-finance rule is unconstitutional. Disclosure, disclaimers, contribution limits, coordination rules, and bans on direct corporate contributions involve different analyses. The textbook statement summarizes resistance to broad expenditure limits; it is not a rule that all political money must be unregulated.
Evidence boundary
This page explains the cited textbook question through leading U.S. federal campaign-finance cases. It does not claim that every political-money restriction is invalid, does not cover every later decision or jurisdiction, and is educational information rather than legal advice.
Sources
These references support the concepts and methods used in the explanation above.