Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 594.0

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

433 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

tion.  At  the  federal  level,  the  express  distinction  between 
corporate and individual political spending on elections 
stretches  back  to  1907,  when  Congress  passed  the  Tillman 
Act, ch. 420, 34 Stat. 864, banning all corporate contributions 
to  candidates.  The  Senate  Report  on  the  legislation  ob­
served  that  “[t]he  evils  of  the  use  of  [corporate]  money  in 
connection  with  political  elections  are  so  generally  recog­
nized that the committee deems it unnecessary to make any 
argument  in  favor  of  the  general  purpose  of  this  measure. 
It  is  in  the  interest  of  good  government  and  calculated  to 
promote  purity  in  the  selection  of  public  ofﬁcials.”  S.  Rep. 
No.  3056,  59th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  2  (1906).  President  Roose­
velt, in his 1905 annual message to Congress, declared: 

“ ‘All contributions by corporations to any political com­
mittee  or  for  any  political  purpose  should  be  forbidden 
by  law;  directors  should  not  be  permitted  to  use  stock­
holders’ money for such purposes; and, moreover, a pro­
hibition of this kind would be, as far as it went, an effec­
tive  method  of  stopping  the  evils  aimed  at  in  corrupt 
practices acts.’ ”  United States v.  Automobile Workers, 
352 U. S. 567, 572 (1957) (quoting 40 Cong. Rec. 96). 

The Court has surveyed the history leading up to the Till­
man  Act  several  times,  see  WRTL,  551  U. S.,  at  508–510 
(Souter,  J.,  dissenting);  McConnell,  540  U. S.,  at  115;  Auto­
mobile Workers, 352 U. S., at 570–575, and I will refrain from 
doing so again.  It is enough to say that the Act was primar­
ily  driven  by  two  pressing  concerns:  ﬁrst,  the  enormous 
power  corporations  had  come  to  wield  in  federal  elections, 
with  the accompanying  threat  of  both actual  corruption  and 
a  public  perception  of  corruption;  and  second,  a  respect  for 
the  interest  of  shareholders  and  members  in  preventing  the 
use of their money to support candidates they opposed.  See 
ibid.; United States v.  CIO, 335 U. S. 106, 113 (1948); Winkler, 
“Other  People’s  Money”:  Corporations,  Agency  Costs,  and 
Campaign Finance Law, 92 Geo. L. J. 871 (2004).