Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 508

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

347 

Opinion of the Court 

cause  its  source  is  a  corporation  that  cannot  prove,  to 
the  satisfaction  of  a  court,  a  material  effect  on  its  busi­
ness  or  property.  .  .  .  [That  proposition]  amounts  to  an 
impermissible legislative prohibition of speech based on 
the identity of the interests that spokesmen may repre­
sent  in  public  debate  over  controversial  issues  and  a 
requirement  that  the  speaker  have  a  sufﬁciently  great 
interest in the subject to justify communication. 

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“In  the  realm  of  protected  speech,  the  legislature  is 
constitutionally  disqualiﬁed  from  dictating  the  subjects 
about  which  persons  may  speak  and  the  speakers  who 
may address a public issue.”  Id., at 784–785. 

It  is  important  to  note  that  the  reasoning  and  holding  of 
Bellotti  did  not  rest  on  the  existence  of  a  viewpoint-
discriminatory  statute.  It  rested  on  the  principle  that  the 
Government lacks the power to ban corporations from 
speaking. 

Bellotti did not address the constitutionality of the State’s 
ban on corporate independent expenditures to support candi­
dates.  In  our  view,  however,  that  restriction  would  have 
been  unconstitutional under  Bellotti’s central  principle: that 
the First Amendment does not allow political speech restric­
tions based on a speaker’s corporate identity.  See ibid. 

3 

Thus  the  law  stood  until  Austin.  Austin  “uph[eld]  a  di­
rect restriction on the independent  expenditure of funds for 
political  speech  for  the  ﬁrst  time  in  [this  Court’s]  history.” 
494 U. S., at 695 (Kennedy, J., dissenting).  There, the Mich­
igan  Chamber  of  Commerce  sought  to  use  general  treasury 
funds to run a newspaper ad supporting a speciﬁc candidate. 
Michigan law, however, prohibited corporate independent ex­
penditures that supported or opposed any candidate for state 
ofﬁce.  A  violation  of  the  law  was  punishable  as  a  felony. 
The Court sustained the speech prohibition.