Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 545.0

384  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Roberts, C. J., concurring 

To be clear: The Court in Austin nowhere relied upon the 
only  arguments  the  Government  now  raises  to  support  that 
decision.  In  fact,  the  only  opinion  in  Austin  endorsing  the 
Government’s argument based on the threat of quid pro quo 
corruption  was  Justice  Stevens’s  concurrence.  494  U. S., 
at 678.  The Court itself did not do so, despite the fact that 
the  concurrence  highlighted  the  argument.  Moreover,  the 
Court’s  only  discussion  of  shareholder  protection  in  Austin 
appeared  in  a  section  of  the  opinion  that  sought  merely  to 
distinguish  Austin’s  facts  from  those  of  Federal  Election 
Comm’n  v.  Massachusetts  Citizens  for  Life,  Inc.,  479  U. S. 
238  (1986).  Austin,  supra,  at  663.  Nowhere  did  Austin 
suggest  that  the  goal  of  protecting  shareholders  is  itself  a 
compelling interest authorizing restrictions on First Amend­
ment rights. 

To  the  extent  that  the  Government’s  case  for  reafﬁrming 
Austin depends on radically reconceptualizing its reasoning, 
that argument is  at odds with itself.  Stare decisis  is a doc­
trine of preservation, not transformation.  It counsels defer­
ence to past mistakes, but provides no justiﬁcation for mak­
ing  new  ones.  There  is  therefore  no  basis  for  the  Court  to 
give  precedential  sway  to  reasoning  that  it  has  never  ac­
cepted,  simply  because  that  reasoning  happens  to  support  a 
conclusion reached on different grounds that have since been 
abandoned or discredited. 

Doing so would undermine the rule-of-law values that jus­
tify  stare  decisis  in  the  ﬁrst  place.  It  would  effectively  li­
cense the Court to invent and adopt new principles of consti­
tutional  law  solely  for  the  purpose  of  rationalizing  its  past 
errors, without a proper analysis of whether those principles 
have  merit  on  their  own.  This  approach  would  allow  the 
Court’s  past  missteps  to  spawn  future  mistakes,  undercut­
ting the very rule-of-law values that stare decisis is designed 
to protect. 

None of this is to say that the Government is barred from 
making  new  arguments  to  support  the  outcome  in  Austin.