Van Hollen v. Federal Election Commission

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge BROWN.

BROWN, Circuit Judge:

The arc of campaign finance law has been ambivalent, bending toward speech and disclosure. Indeed what has made this area of election law so challenging is that these two values exist in unmistakable tension. Disclosure chills speech. Speech without disclosure risks corruption. And the Supreme Court’s track record of expanding who may speak while simultaneously blessing robust disclosure rules has set these two values on an ineluctable collision course.

That tension is on full display in this appeal. At issue is whether to…