United states court of appeals for the second circuit

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District Court’s September 2, 2009 judgment (2d Cir. Docket No. 09-3760-cv(L)), which we address

in our first, separately filed opinion.

DISCUSSION

We conduct a de novo review of a District Court’s decision to grant summary judgment.  See,

e.g., Jeffreys v. City of N.Y., 426 F.3d 549, 553 (2d Cir. 2005).  Summary judgment is appropriate if

“there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and . . . the movant is entitled to judgment as a

matter of law.”  Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(2). 

I.

The CFRA’s Contribution Bans

We first consider whether the provisions of the CFRA that prohibit state contractors,

lobbyists, and associated individuals from making campaign contributions to candidates for state

office violate the First Amendment.

A.

The Standard for Evaluating the CFRA’s Contribution Bans

In a long line cases beginning with Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), the Supreme Court has

distinguished laws restricting campaign expenditures and campaign-related speech from laws restricting

campaign contributions.  The Court has determined that laws limiting campaign expenditures and

campaign-related speech “impose significantly more severe restrictions on protected freedoms of

political expression and association than do” laws limiting campaign contributions.  Id. at 23.  As a

result, the Court has evaluated laws limiting campaign expenditures and campaign-related speech

under the “strict scrutiny” standard, which “requires the Government to prove that the restriction

furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.”  Citizens United v. Fed.

Election Comm’n, 130 S. Ct. 876, 898 (2010) (quotation marks omitted).  

For laws limiting campaign contributions, by contrast, the Court has conducted a “relatively

complaisant review under the First Amendment.”  Beaumont, 539 U.S. at 161.  Such laws, the Court

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has concluded, are “merely ‘marginal’ speech restrictions,” since contributions “lie closer to the

edges than to the core of political expression.”  Id.  Thus, “instead of requiring contribution

regulations to be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest,” a law limiting

contributions “passes muster if it satisfies the lesser demand of being ‘closely drawn’ to match a

‘sufficiently important interest.’” Id. at 162 (quoting Nixon v. Shrink Mo. Gov’t PAC, 528 U.S. 377,

387-88 (2000)) (some quotation marks omitted); see also Buckley, 424 U.S. at 25.  

The Court has always applied that lower standard—often referred to as the “closely drawn”

standard—to evaluate First Amendment challenges to laws restricting campaign contributions.  See,

e.g., Randall v. Sorrell, 548 U.S. 230, 253 (2006) (plurality opinion); McConnell v. Fed. Election Comm’n,

540 U.S. 93, 138 n.40 (2003), overruled in part on other grounds by Citizens United, 130 S. Ct. at 913;

Beaumont, 539 U.S. at 161.  The Court has applied the closely drawn standard even when the law in

question imposed an outright ban on contributions.  In Beaumont, for instance, the Court applied the

closely drawn standard in upholding a federal law that banned all campaign contributions made by

corporations.  See id. at 149, 161-62.

Although the Court’s campaign-finance jurisprudence may be in a state of flux (especially

with regard to campaign-finance laws regulating corporations), Beaumont and other cases applying the

closely drawn standard to contribution limits remain good law.  Indeed, in the recent Citizens United

case, the Court overruled two of its precedents and struck down a federal law banning independent

campaign expenditures by corporations, but it explicitly declined to reconsider its precedents involving

campaign contributions by corporations to candidates for elected office.  See 130 S. Ct. at 909

(“Citizens United has not made direct contributions to candidates, and it has not suggested that the

Court should reconsider whether contribution limits should be subjected to rigorous First

Amendment scrutiny.”).

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We will, therefore, evaluate the contribution bans imposed by the CFRA under the closely

drawn standard.  We will uphold the statutory bans against plaintiffs’ First Amendment challenge

only if they are closely drawn to achieve a “sufficiently important” government interest.  Beaumont,

539 U.S. at 162 (quotation marks omitted).

In so doing, we reject plaintiffs’ argument that we must apply strict scrutiny because the

provisions at issue here are bans, as opposed to mere limits.  Such an argument was explicitly rejected

in Beaumont (which, as discussed above, remains binding precedent).  See id. at 162.  As Beaumont

concisely explained: “It is not that the difference between a ban and a limit is to be ignored; it is just

that the time to consider it is when applying scrutiny at the level selected, not in selecting the

standard of review itself.”  Id.  Accordingly, the closely drawn standard applies to the bans on

contributions imposed by the CFRA.  As we discuss in greater detail below, however, the fact that

the provisions impose outright bans—and not limits—on contributions is a factor we will consider

when we “apply[] scrutiny at the level selected” and determine whether the provisions are, in fact,

closely drawn to achieve the state’s interests.  Id.

B.

The Ban on Contributions by Contractors and Associated Individuals

In assessing the CFRA’s ban on contributions by contractors and associated individuals, we

first determine whether the ban furthers a “sufficiently important” interest; we then determine

whether the ban is closely drawn to achieve that interest.  See Beaumont, 539 U.S. at 162

1.

Do the Bans on Contractor Contributions Further a “Sufficiently

Important” Interest?

As set forth above, the Connecticut General Assembly enacted the CFRA’s ban on

contractor contributions in response to a series of scandals in which contractors illegally offered

bribes, “kick-backs,” and campaign contributions to state officials in exchange for contracts with the

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