Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 492.0

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

331 

Opinion of the Court 

presented, a party can make any argument in support of that 
claim;  parties  are  not  limited  to  the  precise  arguments  they 
made below.’ ”  Lebron, supra, at 379 (quoting Yee  v.  Escon­
dido,  503  U. S.  519,  534  (1992);  alteration  in  original).  Citi­
zens  United’s  argument  that  Austin  should  be  overruled  is 
“not  a  new  claim.”  Lebron,  513  U. S.,  at  379.  Rather,  it 
is—at most—“a new argument to support what has been [a] 
consistent  claim:  that  [the  FEC]  did  not  accord  [Citizens 
United]  the  rights  it  was  obliged  to  provide  by  the  First 
Amendment.”  Ibid. 

Third,  the  distinction  between  facial  and  as-applied  chal­
lenges is not so well deﬁned that it has some automatic effect 
or  that  it  must  always  control  the  pleadings  and  disposition 
in  every  case  involving a  constitutional  challenge.  The  dis­
tinction  is  both  instructive  and  necessary,  for  it  goes  to  the 
breadth  of  the  remedy  employed  by  the  Court,  not  what 
must be pleaded in a complaint.  See United States v.  Treas­
ury  Employees,  513  U. S.  454,  477–478  (1995)  (contrasting 
“a facial challenge” with “a narrower remedy”).  The parties 
cannot enter into a stipulation that prevents the Court from 
considering certain remedies if those remedies are necessary 
to resolve a claim that has been preserved.  Citizens United 
has  preserved  its  First  Amendment  challenge  to  § 441b  as 
applied  to  the  facts  of  its  case;  and  given  all  the  circum­
stances,  we  cannot  easily  address  that  issue  without  as­
suming  a  premise—the  permissibility  of  restricting  corpo­
rate  political  speech—that  is  itself  in  doubt.  See  Fallon, 
As-Applied and Facial Challenges and Third-Party Standing, 
113 Harv. L. Rev. 1321, 1339 (2000) (“[O]nce a case is brought, 
no general categorical line bars a court from making broader 
pronouncements of invalidity in properly ‘as-applied’ cases”); 
id., at 1327–1328.  As our request for supplemental brieﬁng 
implied,  Citizens  United’s  claim  implicates  the  validity  of 
Austin, which in turn implicates the facial validity of § 441b. 
When  the  statute  now  at  issue  came  before  the  Court  in 
McConnell,  both  the  majority  and  the  dissenting  opinions