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402  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

us a basis for pretermitting litigation relating to that 
provision.7 

The majority suggests that a facial ruling is necessary be­
cause  anything  less  would  chill  too  much  protected  speech. 
See  ante,  at  326–327,  329,  333–336.  In  addition  to  begging 
the  question  what  types  of  corporate  spending  are  constitu­
tionally protected and to what extent, this claim rests on the 
assertion that  some signiﬁcant  number of  corporations have 
been cowed into quiescence by FEC “ ‘censor[ship].’ ”  Ante, 
at  335.  That  assertion  is  unsubstantiated,  and  it  is  hard  to 
square  with  practical  experience.  It  is  particularly  hard  to 
square with the legal landscape following WRTL, which held 
that  a  corporate  communication  could  be  regulated  under 
§ 203  only if  it was  “susceptible of  no reasonable  interpreta­
tion other  than as an appeal  to vote for or  against a speciﬁc 
candidate.”  551 U. S., at 470 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.) (em­
phasis  added).  The  whole  point  of  this  test  was  to  make 
§ 203 as simple and speech-protective as possible.  The 
Court  does  not  explain  how,  in  the  span  of  a  single  election 
cycle,  it  has  determined  The Chief  Justice’s  project  to  be 
a  failure.  In  this  respect,  too,  the  majority’s  critique  of 
line-drawing collapses into a critique of the as-applied review 
method generally.8 

7 Also perplexing is the majority’s attempt to pass blame to the Govern­
ment for its litigating position.  By “hold[ing] out the possibility of ruling 
for Citizens United on a narrow ground yet refrain[ing] from adopting that 
position,”  the  majority  says,  the  Government  has  caused  “added  uncer­
tainty  [that]  demonstrates  the  necessity  to  address  the  question  of  statu­
tory validity.”  Ante, at 333.  Our colleagues have apparently never heard 
of  an  alternative  argument.  Like  every  litigant,  the  Government  would 
prefer  to  win  its  case  outright;  failing  that,  it  would  prefer  to  lose  on  a 
narrow  ground.  The  fact  that  there  are  numerous  different  ways  this 
case  could  be  decided,  and  that  the  Government  acknowledges  as  much, 
does not demonstrate anything about the propriety of a facial ruling. 

8 The  majority’s  “chilling”  argument  is  particularly  inapposite  with  re­
spect to 2 U. S. C. § 441b’s longstanding restriction on the use of corporate 
general  treasury  funds  for  express  advocacy.  If  there  was  ever  any  sig­
niﬁcant uncertainty about what counts as the functional equivalent of ex­