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442  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

before  us.  The  majority  suggests  that  Austin  rests  on  the 
foreign  concept  of  speech  equalization,  ante,  at  350;  ante,  at 
379–381 (opinion  of Roberts, C.  J.), but  we made it  clear in 
Austin  (as  in  several  cases  before  and  since)  that  a  restric­
tion  on  the  way  corporations  spend  their  money  is  no  mere 
exercise in disfavoring the voice of some elements of our so­
ciety  in  preference  to  others.  Indeed,  we  expressly  ruled 
that  the  compelling  interest  supporting  Michigan’s  statute 
was not one of “ ‘equaliz[ing] the relative inﬂuence of speak­
ers  on  elections,’ ”  Austin,  494  U. S.,  at  660  (quoting  id.,  at 
705 (Kennedy, J., dissenting)), but rather the need to confront 
the  distinctive  corrupting  potential  of  corporate  electoral 
advocacy ﬁnanced by general treasury dollars, id., at 659–660. 
For that matter, it should go without saying that when we 
made  this  statement  in  Buckley,  we  could  not  have  been 
casting  doubt  on  the  restriction  on  corporate  expenditures 
in candidate elections, which had not been challenged as “for­
eign to the First Amendment,” ante, at 350 (quoting Buckley, 
424  U. S.,  at  49),  or  for  any  other  reason.  Buckley’s  inde­
pendent expenditure analysis was focused on a very different 
statutory provision, 18 U. S. C. § 608(e)(1) (1970 ed., Supp. V). 
It  is  implausible  to  think,  as  the  majority  suggests,  ante,  at 
346, that Buckley covertly invalidated FECA’s separate cor­
porate  and  union  campaign  expenditure  restriction,  § 610 
(now  codiﬁed  at  2  U. S. C.  § 441b),  even  though  that  restric­
tion  had  been  on  the  books  for  decades  before  Buckley  and 
would  remain  on  the  books,  undisturbed,  for  decades  after. 
The case on which the majority places even greater weight 
than Buckley, however, is Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, claiming it 
“could not have been clearer” that Bellotti’s holding forbade 
distinctions  between  corporate  and  individual  expenditures 
like the one at issue here, ante, at 346.  The Court’s reliance 
is  odd.  The  only  thing  about  Bellotti  that  could  not  be 
clearer  is  that  it  declined  to  adopt  the  majority’s  position. 
Bellotti  ruled,  in  an  explicit  limitation  on  the  scope  of  its 
holding,  that  “our  consideration  of  a  corporation’s  right  to