Buckley v. Valeo’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
4,066 federal appellate · 1,327 district · 1,606 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10,514 later decisions (478 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Elrod v. Burns (1976), Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co. (1982)
4,066 federal appellate · 1,327 district · 1,606 state decisions — followed in 47 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedBuckley v. Valeo (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 591 · 18 U.S.C. § 608 (§ 202 of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) · 26 U.S.C. § 6096 (Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act of 1966) · 26 U.S.C. § 9003 · 26 U.S.C. § 9008 · 26 U.S.C. § 9009 · 26 U.S.C. § 9010 · 26 U.S.C. § 9011
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Baker v. Carr · Grayned v. City of Rockford
Cited together with First National Bank of Boston v. X Bellotti · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson · New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Elrod v. Burns · United States Civil Service Commission v. National Ass'n of Letter Carriers
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 10,514 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Equal protection analysis in the Fifth Amendment area is the same as that under the Fourteenth Amendment.”
859 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“relative to a clearly identified candidate”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage“as 26 an expenditure made by any person in connection with a communication which expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate or the qualification, passage or defeat of a clearly identified measure, or taken as a whole and in context, unambiguously urges a particular result in an election but which is not made to or at the behest of the affected candidate or committee. Cal. Govt.Code § 82031 (emphasis added). 6 27 According to CPLC, the”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.