[a] federal court should abstain only in exceptional circumstances, and only where the complaint involves sensitive areas of social policy that courts ought not to enter. While campaign spending regulation may qualify as an area that federal courts should avoid if possible, [the statute] does not regulate campaign spending. It regulates speech about campaign spending. This is not an area of peculiarly local concern, but an area primarily of federal concern.
survival depends upon [their] ability to compete in the free marketplace of political ideas and ideals. The First Amendment limits states to a neutral role in that competitive process. A state may not interfere with the associational rights of political parties beyond what is necessary to assure honest and orderly elections.
organizing a political party or club; actively participating in fund-raising activities for a partisan candidate or political party; becoming a partisan candidate for, or campaigning for, an elective public office; actively managing the campaign of a partisan candidate for public office; initiating or circulating a partisan nominating committee petition or soliciting votes for a partisan candidate for public office; or serving as a delegate, alternate or proxy to a political party convention.
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