The previous chapter explained how FECA carved out a special rule for political parties: first, exempting them from the general limitations on both contributions and expenditures; second, replacing these limitations with a single restriction on expenditures (with a total limit that differed depending upon whether the expenditures were for a presidential campaign or for a member of Congress).1 One might imply from this conflation of expenditures and contributions that, when made by a political party, Congress saw little reason to distinguish between a contribution to a candidate and an expenditure supporting that candidate. After all, one might reasonably opine, a party’s candidates and the party itself are inextricably linked, if not one and the same. A party exists to get its candidates elected.