Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 474

Cite as: 558 U. S. 310 (2010) 

313 

Syllabus 

ley v.  Valeo,  424 U. S.  1  (per  curiam),  upheld  limits on  direct  contribu­
tions  to  candidates,  18  U. S. C.  § 608(b),  recognizing  a  governmental  in­
terest  in  preventing  quid  pro  quo  corruption.  424  U. S.,  at  25–26. 
However, the Court invalidated § 608(e)’s expenditure ban, which applied 
to individuals, corporations, and unions, because it “fail[ed] to serve any 
substantial  governmental  interest  in  stemming  the  reality  or  appear­
ance of corruption in the electoral process,” id., at 47–48.  While Buck­
ley did not consider a separate ban on corporate and union independent 
expenditures found in § 610, had that provision been challenged in Buck­
ley’s wake, it could not have been squared with the precedent’s reason­
ing  and  analysis.  The  Buckley  Court  did  not  invoke  the  overbreadth 
doctrine to suggest that § 608(e)’s expenditure ban would have been con­
stitutional had it applied to corporations and unions but not individuals. 
Notwithstanding this precedent, Congress soon recodiﬁed § 610’s corpo­
rate  and  union  expenditure  ban  at  2  U. S. C.  § 441b,  the  provision  at 
issue.  Less than two years after Buckley, Bellotti reafﬁrmed the First 
Amendment  principle  that  the  Government  lacks  the  power  to  restrict 
political speech based on the speaker’s corporate identity.  435 U. S., at 
784–785.  Thus the law stood until Austin upheld a corporate independ­
ent  expenditure  restriction,  bypassing  Buckley  and  Bellotti  by  recog­
nizing  a  new  governmental  interest  in  preventing  “the  corrosive  and 
distorting effects of immense aggregations of [corporate] wealth . . . that 
have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s 
political ideas.”  494 U. S., at 660.  Pp. 342–348. 

(c)  This  Court  is  confronted  with  conﬂicting  lines  of  precedent:  a 
pre-Austin  line  forbidding  speech  restrictions  based  on  the  speaker’s 
corporate  identity  and  a  post-Austin  line  permitting  them.  Neither 
Austin’s  antidistortion  rationale  nor  the  Government’s  other  justiﬁca­
tions support § 441b’s restrictions.  Pp. 348–362. 

(1)  The First Amendment prohibits Congress from ﬁning or jail­
ing  citizens,  or  associations  of  citizens,  for  engaging  in  political  speech, 
but  Austin’s  antidistortion  rationale  would  permit  the  Government  to 
ban political speech because the speaker is an association with a corpo­
rate form.  Political speech is “indispensable to decisionmaking in a de­
mocracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corpo­
ration.”  Bellotti,  supra,  at  777  (footnote  omitted).  This  protection  is 
inconsistent with Austin’s rationale, which is meant to prevent corpora­
tions from obtaining “ ‘an unfair advantage in the political marketplace’ ” 
by using “ ‘resources amassed in the economic marketplace.’ ”  494 U. S., 
at  659.  First  Amendment  protections  do  not  depend  on  the  speaker’s 
“ﬁnancial ability to engage in public discussion.”  Buckley, supra, at 49. 
These conclusions were reafﬁrmed when the Court invalidated a BCRA 
provision  that  increased  the  cap  on  contributions  to  one  candidate  if 
the opponent made certain expenditures from personal funds.  Davis v.