“In political circles, Mr. Buckley was perhaps best remembered as the lead plaintiff in a landmark campaign finance lawsuit — Buckley v. Valeo — that in 1976 unraveled part of the post-Watergate regulation of political money. That ruling set the basis for a chain of court decisions, including Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, that embraced the concept that money is equal to speech.
“Trevor Potter, a former FEC commissioner and campaign finance reform advocate, has called the Buckley decision ‘the key case in this area in our lifetimes’ because it permitted unlimited independent political spending.
Mr. Buckley’s role in the case stemmed from his successful third-party campaign for a Senate seat, and his belief that proposed spending and contribution limits would ‘squeeze out the ability of challengers to come in and confront the political establishment.’”