Federal-law limits on the amount of contributions a House of Representatives candidate and his authorized committee may receive from an individual, and the amount his party may devote to coordinated campaign expenditures, 2 U. S. C. sec.sec.441a(a)(1)(A), (a)(3)(A), (c), and (d), normally apply equally to all competitors for a seat and their authorized committees. However, sec.319(a) of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), 2 U. S. C. sec.441a-1(a), part of the so-called "Millionaire's Amendment," fundamentally alters this scheme when, as a result of a candidate's expenditure of personal funds, the "opposition personal funds amount" (OPFA) exceeds $350,000. The OPFA is a statistic comparing competing candidates' personal expenditures and taking account of certain other fundraising. When a "self-financing" candidate's personal expenditure causes the OPFA to pass $350,000, a new, asymmetrical regulatory scheme comes into play. The self-financing candidate remains subject to the normal limitations, but his opponent, the "non-self-financing" candidate, may receive individual contributions at treble the normal limit from individuals who have reached the normal limit on aggregate contributions, and may accept coordinated party expenditures without limit. See sec.sec.441a-1(a)(1)(A)-(C). Because calculating the OPFA requires certain information about the self-financing candidate's campaign assets and personal expenditures, sec.319(b) requires him to file an initial "declaration of intent" revealing the amount of personal funds the candidate intends to spend in excess of $350,000, and to make additional disclosures to the other candidates, their national parties, and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as his personal expenditures exceed certain benchmarks.

Appellant Davis, a candidate for a House seat in 2004 and 2006 who lost both times to the incumbent, notified the FEC for the 2006 election, in compliance with sec.319(b), that he intended to spend $1 million in personal funds. After the FEC informed him it had reason to believe he had violated sec.319 by failing to report personal expenditures during the 2004 campaign, he filed this suit for a declaration that sec.319 is unconstitutional and an injunction preventing the FEC from enforcing the section during the 2006 election. The District Court concluded sua sponte that Davis had standing, but rejected his claims on the merits and granted the FEC summary judgment.

Held:

1. This Court has jurisdiction to hear Davis' appeal. Pp. 6-10.

(a) Davis has standing to challenge sec.319(b)'s disclosure requirements. When he filed suit, he had already declared his 2006 candidacy and had been forced by sec.319(b) to disclose to his opponent that he intended to spend more than $350,000 in personal funds. He also faced the imminent threat that he would have to follow up on that disclosure with further notifications once he passed the $350,000 mark. Securing a declaration that sec.319(b) is unconstitutional and an injunction against its enforcement would have spared him from making those disclosures and also would have removed the real threat that the FEC would pursue an enforcement action based on alleged sec.319(b) violations during his 2004 campaign. Davis also has standing to challenge sec.319(a)'s asymmetrical contribution limits. The standing inquiry focuses on whether the party invoking jurisdiction had the requisite stake in the outcome when the suit was filed, see, e.g., Friends of Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U. S. 167 , and a party facing prospective injury has standing where the threatened injury is real, immediate, and direct, see, e.g., Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95 . Davis faced the requisite injury from sec.319(a) when he filed suit: He had already declared his candidacy and his intent to spend more than $350,000 of personal funds in the general election campaign whose onset was rapidly approaching. Section 319(a) would shortly burden his personal expenditure by allowing his opponent to receive contributions on more favorable terms, and there was no indication that his opponent would forgo that opportunity. Pp. 6-8.

(b) The FEC's argument that the Court lacks jurisdiction because Davis' claims are moot also fails. In Federal Election Comm'n v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (WRTL), 551 U. S. ___, this Court rejected a very similar claim of mootness, finding that the case "fit comfortably within the established exception to mootness for disputes capable of repetition, yet evading review." Id., at ___. That "exception applies where '(1) the challenged action is in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to cessation or expiration; and (2) there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subject to the same action again.' " Ibid. First, despite BCRA's command that the case be expedited to the greatest possible extent and Davis' request that his case be resolved before the 2006 election, the case could not be resolved before the 2006 election. See id., at ___. Second, the FEC has conceded that Davis' sec.319(a) claim would be capable of repetition if he planned to self-finance another bid for a House seat, and he subsequently made a public statement expressing his intent to do so. See id., at ___ . Pp. 8-9.

2. Sections 319(a) and (b) violate the First Amendment. If sec.319(a)'s elevated contribution limits applied across the board to all candidates, Davis would have no constitutional basis for challenging them. Section 319(a), however, raises the limits only for non-self-financing candidates and only when the self-financing candidate's expenditure of personal funds causes the OPFA threshold to be exceeded. This Court has never upheld the constitutionality of a law that imposes different contribution limits for candidates competing against each other, and it agrees with Davis that this scheme impermissibly burdens his First Amendment right to spend his own money for campaign speech. In Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 , the Court soundly rejected a cap on a candidate's expenditure of personal funds to finance campaign speech, holding that a "candidate ... has a First Amendment right to ... vigorously and tirelessly ... advocate his own election," and that a cap on personal expenditures imposes "a substantial," "clea[r,]" and "direc[t]" restraint on that right, id., at 52-53. It found the cap at issue not justified by "[t]he primary governmental interest" in "the prevention of actual and apparent corruption of the political process," id., at 53, or by "[t]he ancillary interest in equalizing the relative financial resources of candidates competing for elective office," id., at 54. Buckley is instructive here. While BCRA does not impose a cap on a candidate's expenditure of personal funds, it imposes an unprecedented penalty on any candidate who robustly exercises that First Amendment right, requiring him to choose between the right to engage in unfettered political speech and subjection to discriminatory fundraising limitations. The resulting drag on First Amendment rights is not constitutional simply because it attaches as a consequence of a statutorily imposed choice. Id., at 54-57, and n. 65, distinguished. The burden is not justified by any governmental interest in eliminating corruption or the perception of corruption, see id., at 53. Nor can an interest in leveling electoral opportunities for candidates of different personal wealth justify sec.319(a)'s asymmetrical limits, see id., at 56-57. The Court has never recognized this interest as a legitimate objective and doing so would have ominous implications for the voters' authority to evaluate the strengths of candidates competing for office. Finally, the Court rejects the Government's argument that sec.319(a) is justified because it ameliorates the deleterious effects resulting from the tight limits federal election law places on individual campaign contributions and coordinated party expenditures. Whatever this argument's merits as an original matter, it is fundamentally at war with Buckley's analysis of expenditure and contributions limits, which this Court has applied in subsequent cases. Pp. 10-17.

(c) Because sec.319(a) is unconstitutional, sec.319(b)'s disclosure requirements, which were designed to implement the asymmetrical contribution limits, are as well. "[C]ompelled disclosure, in itself, can seriously infringe on privacy of association and belief guaranteed by the First Amendment," Buckley, 424 U. S., at 64, so the Court closely scrutinizes such requirements, id., at 75. For significant encroachments to survive, there must be "a 'relevant correlation' or 'substantial relation' between the governmental interest and the information required to be disclosed" and the governmental interest must reflect the seriousness of the burden on First Amendment rights. Ibid. Given sec.319(a)'s unconstitutionality, the burden imposed by the sec.319(b) requirements cannot be justified. P. 18.

501 F. Supp. 2d 22, reversed and remanded.

Alito, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined, and in which Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined as to Part II. Stevens, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined as to Part II. Ginsburg, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Breyer, J., joined.

Under the Mobile-Sierra doctrine, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) must presume that the electricity rate set in a freely negotiated wholesale-energy contract meets the "just and reasonable" requirement of the Federal Power Act (FPA), see 16 U. S. C. sec.824d(a), and the presumption may be overcome only if FERC concludes that the contract seriously harms the public interest. See United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Mobile Gas Service Corp., 350 U. S. 332 ; FPC v. Sierra Pacific Power Co., 350 U. S. 348 . Under FERC's current regulatory regime, a wholesale electricity seller may file a "market-based" tariff, which simply states that the utility will enter into freely negotiated contracts with purchasers. Those contracts are not filed with FERC before they go into effect. In 2000 and 2001, there was a dramatic increase in the price of electricity in the western United States. As a result, respondents entered into long-term contracts with petitioners that locked in rates that were very high by historical standards. Respondents subsequently asked FERC to modify the contracts, contending that the rates should not be presumed just and reasonable under Mobile-Sierra. The Administrative Law Judge concluded that the presumption applied and that the contracts did not seriously harm the public interest. FERC affirmed, but the Ninth Circuit remanded. The court held that contract rates are presumptively reasonable only where FERC has had an initial opportunity to review the contracts without applying the Mobile-Sierra presumption and therefore that the presumption should not apply to contracts entered into under "market-based" tariffs. The court alternatively held that there is a different standard for overcoming the Mobile-Sierra presumption when a purchaser challenges a contract: whether the contract exceeds a "zone of reasonableness."

Held:

1. The Commission was required to apply the Mobile-Sierra presumption in evaluating the contracts here. Sierra held that a rate set out in a contract must be presumed to be just and reasonable absent serious harm to the public interest, regardless of when the contract is challenged. FPC v. Texaco Inc., 417 U. S. 380 , distinguished. Also, the Ninth Circuit's rule requiring FERC to ask whether a contract was formed in an environment of market "dysfunction" is not supported by this Court's cases and plainly undermines the role of contracts in the FPA's statutory scheme. Pp. 15-19.

2. The Ninth Circuit's "zone of reasonableness" test fails to accord an adequate level of protection to contracts. The standard for a buyer's rate-increase challenge must be the same, generally, as the standard for a seller's challenge: The contract rate must seriously harm the public interest. The Ninth Circuit misread Sierra in holding that the standard for evaluating a high-rate challenge and setting aside a contract rate is whether consumers' electricity bills were higher than they would have been had the contract rates equaled "marginal cost." Under the Mobile-Sierra presumption, setting aside a contract rate requires a finding of "unequivocal public necessity," Permian Basin Area Rate Cases, 390 U. S. 747 , or "extraordinary circumstances," Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co. v. Hall, 453 U. S. 571 . Pp. 19-23.

3. The judgment below is nonetheless affirmed on alternative grounds, based on two defects in FERC's analysis. First, the analysis was flawed or incomplete to the extent FERC looked simply to whether consumers' rates increased immediately upon conclusion of the relevant contracts, rather than determining whether the contracts imposed an excessive burden "down the line," relative to the rates consumers could have obtained (but for the contracts) after elimination of the dysfunctional market. Sierra's "excessive burden" on customers was the current burden, not just the burden imposed at the contract's outset. See 350 U. S., at 355. Second, it is unclear from FERC's orders whether it found respondents' evidence inadequate to support their claim that petitioners engaged in unlawful market manipulation that altered the playing field for contract negotiations. In such a case, the Commission should not presume that a contract is just and reasonable. Like fraud and duress, unlawful market activity directly affecting contract negotiations eliminates the premise on which the Mobile-Sierra presumption rests: that the contract rates are the product of fair, arms-length negotiations. On remand, FERC should amplify or clarify its findings on these two points. Pp. 23-26.

471 F. 3d 1053, affirmed and remanded.

Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined, and in which Ginsburg, J., joined as to Part III. Ginsburg, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter, J., joined. Roberts, C. J., and Breyer, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the cases.

Notes:
*

* Together with No. 06-1462, American Electric Power Service Corp. et al. v. Public Utility District No. 1 of Snohomish County et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

District of Columbia law bans handgun possession by making it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm and prohibiting the registration of handguns; provides separately that no person may carry an unlicensed handgun, but authorizes the police chief to issue 1-year licenses; and requires residents to keep lawfully owned firearms unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device. Respondent Heller, a D. C. special policeman, applied to register a handgun he wished to keep at home, but the District refused. He filed this suit seeking, on Second Amendment grounds, to enjoin the city from enforcing the bar on handgun registration, the licensing requirement insofar as it prohibits carrying an unlicensed firearm in the home, and the trigger-lock requirement insofar as it prohibits the use of functional firearms in the home. The District Court dismissed the suit, but the D. C. Circuit reversed, holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess firearms and that the city's total ban on handguns, as well as its requirement that firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional even when necessary for self-defense, violated that right.

Held:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2-53.

(a) The Amendment's prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause's text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2-22.

(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court's interpretation of the operative clause. The "militia" comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens' militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens' militia would be preserved. Pp. 22-28.

(c) The Court's interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment. Pp. 28-30.

(d) The Second Amendment's drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. Pp. 30-32.

(e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court's conclusion. Pp. 32-47.

(f) None of the Court's precedents forecloses the Court's interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 , nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252 , refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174 , does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. Pp. 47-54.

2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court's opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller's holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those "in common use at the time" finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54-56.

3. The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District's total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of "arms" that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition--in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute--would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home. Pp. 56-64.

478 F. 3d 370, affirmed.

Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined.