Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 613

452  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

have  been  appalled  by  the  evidence  of  corruption  that  Con­
gress  unearthed  in  developing  BCRA  and  that  the  Court 
today  discounts  to  irrelevance.  It  is  fair  to  say  that  “[t]he 
Framers were obsessed with corruption,” Teachout 348, 
which they understood to encompass the dependency of pub­
lic ofﬁceholders on private interests, see id., at 373–374; see 
also  Randall,  548  U. S.,  at  280  (Stevens,  J.,  dissenting). 
They discussed corruption “more often in the Constitutional 
Convention than factions, violence, or instability.”  Teachout 
352.  When they brought our constitutional order into being, 
the  Framers had  their minds  trained on  a threat  to republi­
can self-government that this Court has lost sight of. 

Quid Pro Quo Corruption 

There  is  no  need  to  take  my  side  in  the  debate  over  the 
scope  of  the  anticorruption  interest  to  see  that  the  Court’s 
merits  holding  is  wrong.  Even  under  the  majority’s 
“crabbed  view  of  corruption,”  McConnell,  540  U. S.,  at  152, 
the Government should not lose this case. 

“The importance of the governmental interest in prevent­
ing  [corruption  through  the  creation  of  political  debts]  has 
never  been  doubted.”  Bellotti,  435  U. S.,  at  788,  n.  26. 
Even in the cases that have construed the anticorruption in­
terest  most  narrowly,  we  have  never  suggested  that  such 
quid pro quo debts must take the form of outright vote buy­
ing or bribes, which have long been distinct crimes.  Rather, 
they  encompass  the  myriad  ways  in  which  outside  parties 
may  induce  an  ofﬁceholder  to  confer  a  legislative  beneﬁt  in 
direct  response  to,  or  anticipation  of,  some  outlay  of  money 
the  parties  have  made  or  will  make  on  behalf  of  the  ofﬁce­
holder.  See McConnell, 540 U. S., at 143 (“We have not lim­
ited  [the  anticorruption]  interest  to  the  elimination  of  cash­
for-votes exchanges.  In Buckley, we expressly rejected the 
argument  that  antibribery  laws  provided  a  less  restrictive 
alternative  to  FECA’s  contribution  limits,  noting  that  such 
laws ‘deal[t] with only the most blatant and speciﬁc attempts