Reply Brief for
Defendants-Appellants

Citizens United held that "independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption" because such expenditures are "[b]y definition" independent and therefore incapable of giving rise to quid-pro-quo corruption. Id. at 357, 360. Plaintiffs try to apply that holding to SuperPAC contributions through sleight of hand, laundering contributions as "independent donations." But that rebranding ignores the important regulatory distinctions between contributions and independent expenditures—distinctions that mean that contributions cannot be rendered "independent."

The term "independent expenditures" applies solely to expenditures that comply with stringent non-coordination regulations preventing any expenditure-related interaction between the candidate and the entity making the expenditure. See, e.g., 52 U.S.C. §§ 30116, 30118; ME. STAT. tit. 21-A, § 1015(5); 11 C.F.R. § 109.21. By preventing any coordination between candidates and SuperPACs, these regulations remove the opportunity for quid pro quos to occur. A SuperPAC can't bribe a candidate if it can't even speak to him. SuperPACs have every incentive to ensure their employees adhere to these coordination restrictions because engaging in any coordination makes a SuperPAC liable for hefty fines and potential criminal prosecution. That is why Citizens United said that independent expenditures are "[b]y definition" incapable of giving rise to quid-pro-quo corruption. 558 U.S. at 360.

None of this is true of SuperPAC contributions. There is no such thing as an "independent donation" because there are no—and could be no—effective regulations preventing a donor from coordinating with a candidate. That means there is ample opportunity for quid-pro-quo corruption to occur. And even assuming there could be robust restrictions on candidate-donor coordination, SuperPACs would have no meaningful way to police such regulations because they cannot know what pre-contribution communications a donor had with the candidate.

Plaintiffs suggest that regulations restricting candidates' ability to solicit funds resolve any risk of corruption. But solicitation restrictions limit candidates' ability to request donations outright—they do not, and could not, impose the sort of flat bar on coordination that exists with respect to independent expenditures. The threat of quid-pro-quo corruption facilitated by coordination fully persists.

Indeed, the Supreme Court has already recognized that contribution limits and solicitation restrictions can coexist. McConnell v. FEC upheld both a limit on soft-money contributions to national party committees and a restriction on candidates' ability to solicit those same funds. 540 U.S. 93, 145–146, 182–183 (2003). The contribution limits addressed the risk and appearance of corruption, and "restrictions on solicitations" were "valid anticircumvention measures." Id. at 145, 182. So too here.

In any event, while Maine law contains a solicitation provision for state candidates, it is very limited. Maine provides that contributions to PACs "primarily promot[ing] . . . a single candidate" are subject to the limits on contributions directly to a candidate only when the contributions "were solicited by the candidate." ME. STAT. tit. 21-A, § 1015(4). But as Plaintiffs acknowledged below, those PACs account for less than half of all SuperPAC activity. Even if Maine were to extend this solicitation restriction to apply to all PACs, the simpler and more effective remedy to avoid such corruption is the remedy recognized in Buckley and affirmed in Citizens United: limits on the size of contributions.

Plaintiffs ask this Court to elide the distinction between expenditures and contributions that the Supreme Court has recognized for over fifty years. Since Buckley, the Supreme Court has recognized that contribution limits place less of a burden on speech than expenditure limits. The Supreme Court has therefore held that while independent-expenditure limits are subject to strict scrutiny, campaign-contribution limits "may be sustained" so long as they are "closely drawn" to serve a "sufficiently important" state interest. Buckley, 424 U.S. at 25; see, e.g., McCutcheon, 572 U.S. at 199. Yet Plaintiffs boldly assert that strict scrutiny should apply to "donation limits because a donation for an independent expenditure is an independent expenditure." That is wrong.

Independent-expenditure limits must withstand strict scrutiny because independent expenditures are turned directly into speech, and the person who spends the money controls the content and format of that speech. "[A] restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached." Buckley, 424 U.S. at 19. "By contrast," "[a] limitation on the amount of money a person may give" to a candidate or campaign "involves little direct restraint on his political communication" because "it permits the symbolic expression of support evidenced by a contribution" without "infring[ing] the contributor's freedom to discuss candidates and issues." Id. at 21.

Plaintiffs assert that the rule should be different for contributions made to SuperPACs, reasoning that those contributions should be treated like independent expenditures because the SuperPAC will eventually use them to make its own independent expenditures. But the Supreme Court already rejected that argument in Buckley. The Court acknowledged that "contributions may result in political expression if spent by a candidate or an association to present views to the voters," but found that contributions are subject to lesser scrutiny because "the transformation of contributions into political debate involves speech by someone other than the contributor." Id. at 21 (emphasis added). That logic fully applies to SuperPAC contributions.

Plaintiffs also suggest that the Act will "cripple" their abilities to receive contributions, thereby "stifling" their ability to communicate election-related views. But as Buckley recognized, "[t]here is no indication" that contribution limits "have any dramatic adverse effect on the funding of campaigns and political associations"—all contribution ceilings do is require entities "to raise funds from a greater number of persons." Id. at 21–22. Rather than stifle election-related speech, contribution limits promote political dialogue by encouraging entities to engage more people.

That is not to say that Maine's law is constitutionally compelled. But a law with these salutary effects on speech is plainly not barred by the First Amendment. And states, in the exercise of their powers, can function as laboratories.

Plaintiffs suggest there is no real-world evidence of quid-pro-quo corruption following from the rise of SuperPACs. The assertion beggars belief. The rise in the view that politicians are corrupt because of the explosion of money is well documented. And as Equal Citizens's expert demonstrated, that rise is tied directly to the absence of limits on SuperPAC contributions. JA 197–264.

Plaintiffs suggest there are defects in the two real-world examples Equal Citizens put forth, observing that Senator Menendez was ultimately acquitted, and that Larry Householder's conviction is somehow distinguishable. But the point of Senator Menendez's indictment is not whether he was ultimately guilty, but rather that both the federal government and the court recognized that SuperPAC contributions can be part of a quid-pro-quo exchange. United States v. Menendez, 132 F. Supp. 3d 635, 640 (D.N.J. 2015). And Larry Householder's conviction for accepting bribes through a corporation that could receive "unlimited contributions" similarly demonstrates the possibility for channeling bribes through separate entities capable of accepting unlimited donations. United States v. Householder, 137 F.4th 454, 464 (6th Cir. 2025).

Moreover, Plaintiffs simply ignore the many other examples of the corrupting influence of SuperPACs offered to this Court by Equal Citizens and its amici, including the cases of José Susumo Azano Matsura, Senator Susan Collins, Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu, Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, and Zekelman Industries. These examples, which Plaintiffs do not even acknowledge, prove that SuperPAC contributions have repeatedly served as the basis for real-world quid-pro-quo corruption.

Plaintiffs assert, however, that the Act is not adequately tailored because it does not expressly apply to contributions to "party committees." But state party committees and "subordinate" entities are already subject to an extensive array of federal regulations, including contribution limits. 11 C.F.R. § 110.3(b)(3). The existence of those limits is strong evidence that the Act does not exceed "the outer limit of acceptable tailoring" in applying similar restrictions to SuperPACs. See FEC v. Colo. Republican Fed. Campaign Comm., 533 U.S. 431, 462 (2001).

Unable to defend their position on the merits, Plaintiffs rely heavily on SpeechNow.org v. FEC, 599 F.3d 686 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (en banc), and other court-of-appeals decisions holding that SuperPAC contributions must be unconstitutional under Citizens United. But all those decisions share the same root flaw: an erroneous assumption that "because Citizens United holds that independent expenditures do not corrupt or give the appearance of corruption as a matter of law, then the government can have no anti-corruption interest in limiting contributions to independent expenditure-only organizations." Id. at 696.

That logic fails because a SuperPAC's independent expenditures are, well, independent. SuperPAC contributions are not. Coordination with respect to independent expenditures is banned by regulation, but coordination with respect to donations is not, and could not be. Because no courts of appeals even recognized this point, their views are not persuasive. Rather, the Court should adhere to Buckley's fundamental holding that contribution limits are constitutionally distinct from independent-expenditure limits, and where—as here—a contribution limit serves a compelling interest in combatting quid-pro-quo corruption, it survives First Amendment scrutiny.

Plaintiffs contend that these arguments "would be for the Supreme Court, not this Court, to adopt." It is true that this Court cannot rest its holding on Equal Citizens's first originalist argument because it is grounded on different principles than Buckley. But the Court is free to rest its conclusion on the second originalist argument, which is consistent with the Buckley framework.

Buckley held that contribution limits "may be sustained" so long as they are "closely drawn" to serve a "sufficiently important" state interest. 424 U.S. at 25. Equal Citizens's opening brief catalogued the wide array of historical evidence demonstrating that the Framers were focused on the problem of dependence corruption, such that combatting that form of corruption constitutes another compelling state interest that can sustain a law under the Buckley framework.

In arguing the contrary, Plaintiffs assert that the Supreme Court has held that combatting quid-pro-quo corruption is the only compelling interest that can support contribution limits. But that misreads the Court's statements. The Court has explained that it has so far "recognized only one permissible ground for restricting political speech: the prevention of 'quid pro quo' corruption or its appearance," FEC v. Cruz, 596 U.S. 289, 305 (2022), but it has not foreclosed the possibility of recognizing additional interests in the future.

The originalist case for doing so is strong. Dependence corruption—the improper dependence of public officials on deep-pocket interests—was viewed as anathema to our republic. Founding-era history, the text of the Constitution, and tradition and precedent all demonstrate the Framers' deep concern with dependence corruption. Plaintiffs do not meaningfully dispute the ample evidence that the Framers were deeply concerned with this threat. And the Framers' recognition that dependence corruption is, if anything, more of a threat to our democracy than quid-pro-quo corruption demonstrates that combatting dependence corruption is indeed a compelling interest.

Justice Thomas has stated that "regulations that might affect speech are valid if they would have been permissible at the time of the founding," Biden v. Knight First Amend. Inst. at Colum. Univ., 141 S. Ct. 1220, 1223–24 (2021) (Thomas, J., concurring). Equal Citizens has submitted an expert declaration establishing that the Framers would have found a regulation of speech constitutional if it was adopted by the people through a representative process as a means of advancing the public good. The Act, which was adopted by a ballot initiative supported by 74.9% of Maine voters, plainly satisfies those requirements.

Plaintiffs seek to undermine this argument by observing that Justice Thomas has sometimes stated that contribution limits do not appear to be constitutional under originalist principles. But Equal Citizens is relying on Justice Thomas's articulation of the appropriate originalist methodology for understanding the First Amendment, not his specific views on campaign contributions. Justice Thomas has explained that courts "should carefully examine the original meaning of the First" Amendment by applying it "as it was understood by the people who ratified it." McKee v. Cosby, 586 U.S. 1172, 1173 (2019) (Thomas, J., concurring in the denial of certiorari).

Plaintiffs decline to engage Professor Gienapp's historical argument on the merits, instead attacking his credentials. But they ignore that Professor Gienapp's understanding reflects the principles articulated in the Campbell article that Justice Thomas has cited approvingly—that at the Founding, "Americans typically viewed natural rights as aspects of natural liberty that governments should help protect against private interference . . . and that governments themselves could restrain only to promote the public good and only so long as the people or their representatives consented." Campbell, Natural Rights and the First Amendment, 127 Yale L.J. 246, 253 (2017). That is precisely the point here. Maine's law satisfies that standard.

None of this is to say that this Court is obliged to reach the originalist arguments. The fact that the Act serves Maine's compelling interest in combatting quid-pro-quo corruption is more than sufficient to uphold the law on its own. But the originalist evidence may be helpful to subsequent courts as they evaluate the First Amendment questions surrounding campaign-finance regulation, especially over SuperPACs.

Plaintiffs misapprehend the Act's disclosure provision, asserting that it is "underinclusive" because it does not apply "equally to candidate donations, donations to traditional PACs, or donations to party committees." In fact, the disclosure requirement for SuperPACs is well in line with the requirements that already apply to these entities under existing Maine law.

The Act does not require disclosure for all donations to SuperPACs; it provides that where a SuperPAC makes an expenditure above $250, it must disclose the "total contributions from each contributor" to that expenditure. ME. STAT. tit. 21-A, § 1019-B(4)(B). That requirement accords with Maine's requirement that all PACs must disclose details regarding any contribution greater than $50, id. § 1060(6), and that all party committees must report "all contributions" from "a single contributor" that total more than $200. Id. § 1017-A(1).

Accordingly, the Act's disclosure requirement does not inject a new provision in the election code that treats entities differently; it just lays on a generally applicable and particularized disclosure requirement for independent expenditures.

Plaintiffs further contend that the Act's disclosure requirement is over-inclusive because it "lacks a threshold below which disclosure of contributions [is] not required," even though "small-dollar donations for independent expenditures" "have no likelihood to corrupt." Plaintiffs therefore appear to be making an argument that the Act is per se unconstitutional simply because it requires SuperPACs to disclose the names of all contributors once it makes an expenditure of more than $250.

But this Court has held that a disclosure requirement may not be deemed per se unconstitutional merely because it is triggered by low-dollar value contributions. Vote Choice, Inc. v. DiStefano, 4 F.3d 26 (1st Cir. 1993). In Vote Choice, this Court rejected the contention that there is a per se bar on "first dollar disclosure," explaining that a state's informational interest may justify such a requirement because the "ideological interests" of a candidate "may often be discerned as clearly" from the identity of the individuals contributing $1 to him "as from a $100 contribution." Id. at 32.

Vote Choice's discussion aligns with Supreme Court precedents. Buckley explained that policy decisions, such as the dollar amount that triggers a disclosure requirement, are left to legislative discretion, and a legislature need not "establish that it has chosen the highest reasonable threshold." 424 U.S. at 83–85 (upholding a $10 disclosure threshold). Because Plaintiffs' reliance on an unsupported per se argument is foreclosed by precedent, and because Plaintiffs offer no other compelling reason to hold the disclosure requirement unconstitutional, the District Court's decision invalidating that requirement should be reversed.

The disclosure requirement does not rise or fall with the constitutionality of the Act's contribution limit. Plaintiffs completely ignore that Equal Citizens set forth three independent governmental interests that justify the Act's disclosure requirement (informational, enforcement, and combatting corruption), instead addressing only whether the disclosure requirement is justified by Maine's anticorruption interest. But even the District Court recognized that Maine's informational interest is sufficiently important to independently justify the disclosure requirement, striking down the requirement only because it erroneously determined that the disclosure requirement was not narrowly tailored to that interest.

Plaintiffs assert in a single sentence that if the Court strikes the Act's contribution limit, the disclosure requirement "is unnecessary, and the entire Act should fall," citing N.H. Right to Life Political Action Comm. v. Gardner, 99 F.3d 8 (1st Cir. 1996). But Gardner is inapposite. In that case, this Court struck down companion provisions that required political committees to pledge compliance with the now-unconstitutional independent-expenditure limit—because "[o]ne cannot be compelled to state that one will comply with an unconstitutional statute." Id. at 19.

The disclosure requirement here is not so tied to the contribution limit. It simply requires an individual or entity "that makes any independent expenditure in excess of $250 during any one candidate's election" to disclose the identity of each contributor who funded the independent expenditure. ME. STAT. tit. 21-A, § 1019-B(4)(B). Even if this Court finds the contribution limit unconstitutional, this requirement would not compel any entity to state that it will comply with an unconstitutional statute. The disclosure requirement can therefore stand regardless of the Court's holding with respect to the contribution limit.