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466  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

It  might  also  be  added  that  corporations  have  no  con­
sciences,  no  beliefs,  no  feelings,  no  thoughts,  no  desires. 
Corporations  help  structure  and  facilitate  the  activities  of 
human  beings,  to  be  sure,  and  their  “personhood”  often 
serves as a useful legal ﬁction.  But they are not themselves 
members  of  “We  the  People”  by  whom  and  for  whom  our 
Constitution was established. 

These basic points help explain why corporate electioneer­
ing is not only more likely to impair compelling governmen­
tal interests, but also why restrictions on that electioneering 
are less likely to encroach upon First Amendment freedoms. 
One fundamental concern of the First Amendment is to “pro­
tec[t]  the  individual’s  interest  in  self-expression.”  Consoli­
dated  Edison  Co.  of  N. Y.  v.  Public  Serv.  Comm’n  of  N. Y., 
447  U. S.  530,  534,  n.  2  (1980);  see  also  Bellotti,  435  U. S.,  at 
777, n.  12.  Freedom of speech  helps “make men free  to de­
velop  their  faculties,”  Whitney  v.  California,  274  U. S.  357, 
375  (1927)  (Brandeis,  J.,  concurring),  it  respects  their  “dig­
nity and choice,” Cohen  v.  California, 403 U. S. 15, 24 (1971), 
and  it  facilitates  the  value  of  “individual  self-realization,” 
Redish,  The  Value  of  Free  Speech,  130  U.  Pa.  L.  Rev. 
591,  594  (1982).  Corporate  speech,  however,  is  derivative 
speech, speech by proxy.  A regulation such as BCRA § 203 
may affect the way in which individuals disseminate certain 
messages  through  the  corporate  form,  but  it  does  not  pre­
vent anyone from speaking in his or her own voice.  “Within 
the realm of [campaign spending] generally, ” corporate 

rate  Law,  85  Va.  L.  Rev.  247  (1999)  (hereinafter  Blair  &  Stout),  or  any 
other recognized model.  Austin referred to the structure and the advan­
tages  of  corporations  as  “state-conferred”  in  several  places,  494  U. S.,  at 
660,  665,  667,  but  its  antidistortion  argument  relied  only  on  the  basic  de­
scriptive features of corporations, as sketched above.  It is not necessary 
to agree on a precise theory of the corporation to agree that corporations 
differ  from  natural  persons  in  fundamental  ways,  and  that  a  legislature 
might  therefore  need  to  regulate  them  differently  if  it  is  human  welfare 
that is the object of its concern.  Cf. Hansmann & Kraakman 441, n. 5.