Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 625

464  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

It  is  the  denial  of  Congress’  authority  to  regulate  corporate 
spending on elections. 

Austin and Corporate Expenditures 

Just as the majority gives short shrift to the general soci­
etal interests at stake in campaign ﬁnance regulation, it also 
overlooks the distinctive considerations raised by the regula­
tion  of  corporate  expenditures.  The  majority  fails  to  ap­
preciate  that  Austin’s  antidistortion  rationale  is  itself  an 
anticorruption  rationale,  see  494  U. S.,  at  660  (describing 
“a different type of corruption”), tied to the special concerns 
raised  by  corporations.  Understood  properly,  “antidistor­
tion” is simply a variant on the classic governmental interest 
in  protecting  against  improper  inﬂuences  on  ofﬁceholders 
that  debilitate  the  democratic  process.  It  is  manifestly  not 
just  an “ ‘equalizing’ ”  ideal  in  disguise.  Ante, at  350  (quot­
ing Buckley, 424 U. S., at 48).69 

69 The  Chief  Justice  denies  this,  ante,  at  380–382,  citing  scholarship 
that  has  interpreted  Austin  to  endorse  an  equality  rationale,  along  with 
an article by Justice Thurgood Marshall’s former law clerk that states that 
Marshall,  the  author  of  Austin,  accepted  “equality  of  opportunity”  and 
“equalizing  access  to  the  political  process”  as  bases  for  campaign  ﬁnance 
regulation,  Garrett,  New  Voices  in  Politics:  Justice  Marshall’s  Jurispru­
dence  on  Law  and  Politics,  52  How.  L.  J.  655,  667–668  (2009)  (internal 
quotation marks omitted).  It is fair to say that Austin can bear an egali­
tarian reading, and I have no reason to doubt this characterization of Jus­
tice Marshall’s beliefs.  But the fact that Austin can be read a certain way 
hardly proves The Chief Justice’s charge that there is nothing more to 
it.  Many  of  our  precedents  can  bear  multiple  readings,  and  many  of  our 
doctrines have some “equalizing” implications but do not rest on an equal­
izing  theory:  for  example,  our  takings  jurisprudence  and  numerous  rules 
of criminal procedure.  More importantly, the Austin Court expressly de­
clined to rely on a speech-equalization rationale, see 494 U. S., at 660, and 
we  have  never  understood  Austin  to  stand  for  such  a  rationale.  What­
ever his personal views, Justice Marshall simply did not write the opinion 
that The Chief Justice suggests he did; indeed, he “would have viewed 
it  as  irresponsible  to  write  an  opinion  that  boldly  staked  out  a  rationale 
based  on  equality  that  no  one  other  than  perhaps  Justice  White  would 
have even considered joining,” Garrett, 52 How. L. J., at 674.