FECA's political-party coordinated-expenditure limits are facially valid under the First Amendment as a regulation of campaign conduct, not speech.

The question is whether the First Amendment prohibits Congress from limiting how much a political party may spend in coordination with its own candidates. The text of the First Amendment says: 'Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.' The original public meaning of 'freedom of speech' in 1791 was the freedom to speak without prior restraint or punishment for the content of one's views, but it did not include a right to spend unlimited money in coordination with a candidate for federal office. At ratification, states and the federal government routinely regulated elections—including candidate ballot access, voting procedures, and campaign-related conduct—without anyone claiming that such regulations violated the free speech clause. The Federalist Papers recognized that Congress had authority under Article I, Section 4 to regulate the 'Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections.' Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 59 that this power was 'necessary' to preserve the federal government itself. The Court has long understood that campaign finance regulations are a 'manner' regulation under Article I, Section 4, Clause 1, when they regulate conduct (such as spending in coordination with a candidate) rather than pure expression. Coordinated spending is functionally a contribution to the candidate's campaign, not independent speech. The holding: FECA's coordinated-expenditure limits are a permissible exercise of Congress's power under Article I, Section 4, Clause 1, and they do not abridge the freedom of speech within the meaning of the First Amendment. The limits survive because they regulate conduct—the act of spending money in concert with a candidate—not the content of any message. This opinion overrules Colorado II only to the extent that it invalidated coordinated-expenditure limits on First Amendment grounds, but that part of Colorado II was itself a departure from constitutional text and original meaning. What changes downstream: McCutcheon and Cruz are unaffected; Buckley's distinction between contributions and expenditures remains, but coordinated expenditures are properly treated as contributions because they are functionally equivalent to giving money to the candidate. Unlimited independent expenditures remain protected as pure speech.