Randall v. Sorrell

Randall v. Sorrell
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 28, 2006 Decided June 26, 2006
Full case name	Neil Randall, et al. v. William H. Sorrell, et al.
Docket nos.	04-1528 04-1530 04-1697
Citations	548 U.S. 230 (more) 126 S. Ct. 2479; 165 L. Ed. 2d 482; 2006 U.S. LEXIS 5161; 74 U.S.L.W. 4435; 19 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 354
Case history
Prior	Judgment for defendant, sub nom. Landell v. Sorrell, 118 F.Supp.2d 459 (D. Vt. 2001); affirmed in part, vacated in part, 382 F.3d 91 (2d Cir. 2002); rehearing denied, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 5884 (2d Cir. Apr. 11, 2005); amended, 406 F.3d 159 (2d Cir. 2005); cert. granted, sub nom. Randall v. Sorrell, 545 U.S. 1165 (2005).
Holding
Vermont's campaign finance restrictions violated the First Amendment. Second Circuit reversed and remanded.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Case opinions
Plurality	Breyer, joined by Roberts; Alito (all but Parts II–B–1 and II–B–2)
Concurrence	Alito (in part)
Concurrence	Kennedy (in judgment)
Concurrence	Thomas (in judgment), joined by Scalia
Dissent	Stevens
Dissent	Souter, joined by Ginsburg; Stevens (Parts II and III)
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I

Randall v. Sorrell, 548 U.S. 230 (2006), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving a Vermont law which placed a cap on financial donations made to politicians. The court ruled that Vermont's law, the strictest in the nation, unconstitutionally hindered the citizens' First Amendment right to free speech.^[1] A key issue in the case was the 1976 case Buckley v. Valeo,^[2] which many justices felt needed to be revisited.