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Page Number: 539.0

378  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Roberts, C. J., concurring 

389 U. S. 347 (1967).  As the dissent properly notes, none of 
us has viewed stare decisis in such absolute terms.  Post, at 
408; see also, e. g., Randall v.  Sorrell, 548 U. S. 230, 274–281 
(2006)  (Stevens,  J.,  dissenting)  (urging  the  Court  to  over­
rule  its  invalidation  of  limits  on  independent  expenditures 
on  political  speech  in  Buckley  v.  Valeo,  424  U. S.  1  (1976) 
(per curiam)). 

Stare decisis is instead a “principle of policy.”  Helvering, 
supra,  at  119.  When  considering  whether  to  reexamine  a 
prior  erroneous holding,  we  must  balance the  importance  of 
having  constitutional  questions  decided  against  the  impor­
tance of having them decided right.  As Justice Jackson ex­
plained, this requires a “sober appraisal of the disadvantages 
of  the  innovation  as  well  as  those  of  the  questioned  case, 
a  weighing  of  practical  effects  of  one  against  the  other.” 
Jackson,  Decisional  Law  and  Stare  Decisis,  30  A.  B.  A.  J. 
334 (1944). 

In  conducting  this  balancing,  we  must  keep  in  mind  that 
stare decisis is not an end in itself.  It is instead “the means 
by which we ensure that the law will not merely change er­
ratically, but will develop in a principled and intelligible fash­
ion.”  Vasquez  v.  Hillery,  474  U. S.  254,  265  (1986).  Its 
greatest  purpose  is  to  serve  a  constitutional  ideal—the  rule 
of  law.  It  follows  that  in  the  unusual  circumstance  when 
ﬁdelity to any particular precedent does more to damage this 
constitutional ideal than to advance it, we must be more will­
ing to depart from that precedent. 

Thus,  for  example,  if  the  precedent  under  consideration 
itself  departed  from  the  Court’s  jurisprudence,  returning  to 
the  “ ‘intrinsically  sounder’  doctrine  established  in  prior 
cases”  may  “better  serv[e]  the  values  of  stare  decisis  than 
would following [the] more recently decided case inconsistent 
with the decisions that came before it.”  Adarand Construc­
tors,  Inc.  v.  Pen˜ a,  515  U. S.  200,  231  (1995);  see  also  Helve-
ring,  supra,  at  119;  Randall,  supra,  at  274  (Stevens,  J., 
dissenting).  Abrogating  the  errant  precedent,  rather  than