Buckley v. Valeo’s Empirical Analysis
519 F.2d 821 · 1975
Citation profile
58 federal appellate · 23 district · 12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 130 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2019 · most notably Buckley v. Valeo (1976), McConnell United States Senator et al. v. Federal Election Commission et al. (2003)
58 federal appellate · 23 district · 12 state decisions
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
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 9002
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Grayned v. City of Rockford · Griswold v. State of Connecticut · United States v. O'Brien · Reynolds v. Sims
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 130 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Public discussion of public issues which also are campaign issues readily and often unavoidably draws in candidates and their positions, their voting records and other official conduct. Discussions of those issues, and as well more positive efforts to influence public opinion on them, tend naturally and inexorably to exert some influence on voting at elections.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'[i]f it is satisfied that some limit on contributions is necessary, a court has no scalpel to probe, whether, say, a $2,000 ceiling might not serve as well as $1,000.'”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“relative to a clearly identified candidate”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.