Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 593

432  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

and  equally  immunized  from  expenditure  limits.  See  ante, 
at  391–392.  That  conclusion  certainly  does  not  follow  as  a 
logical  matter, and  Justice  Scalia fails  to  explain why  the 
original  public  meaning  leads  it  to  follow  as  a  matter  of 
interpretation. 

The truth is we cannot be certain how a law such as BCRA 
§ 203 meshes with the original meaning of the First Amend­
ment.58  I have given several reasons why I believe the Con­
stitution  would  have been  understood  then,  and ought  to  be 
understood  now,  to  permit  reasonable  restrictions  on  corpo­
rate electioneering, and I will give many more reasons in the 
pages to come.  The Court enlists the Framers in its defense 
without  seriously  grappling  with  their  understandings  of 
corporations or the free speech right, or with the republican 
principles that underlay those understandings. 

In fairness, our campaign ﬁnance jurisprudence has never 
attended very closely to the views of the Framers, see Ran­
dall v.  Sorrell, 548 U. S. 230, 280 (2006) (Stevens, J., dissent­
ing),  whose  political  universe  differed  profoundly  from  that 
of today.  We have long since held that corporations are cov­
ered by the First Amendment, and many legal scholars have 
long since rejected the concession theory of the corporation. 
But  “historical  context  is  usually  relevant,”  ibid.  (internal 
quotation  marks  omitted),  and  in  light  of  the  Court’s  effort 
to cast itself as guardian of ancient values, it pays to remem­
ber that nothing in our constitutional history dictates today’s 
outcome.  To the contrary, this history helps illuminate just 
how extraordinarily dissonant the decision is. 

2.  Legislative and Judicial Interpretation 

A  century  of  more  recent  history  puts  to  rest  any  notion 
that today’s ruling is faithful to our First Amendment tradi­

58 Cf.  L.  Levy,  Legacy  of  Suppression:  Freedom  of  Speech  and  Press  in 
Early American  History 4  (1960) (“The  meaning of  no other  clause of  the 
Bill of Rights at the time of its framing and ratiﬁcation has been so obscure 
to us” as the Free Speech and Press Clause).