Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 515.0

354  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Opinion of the Court 

and media that provided the means of communicating politi­
cal ideas when the Bill of Rights was adopted. 

Austin  interferes  with  the  “open  marketplace”  of  ideas 
protected by the First Amendment.  New York State Bd. of 
Elections v.  Lopez Torres, 552 U. S. 196, 208 (2008); see ibid. 
(ideas  “may  compete”  in  this  marketplace  “without  govern­
ment interference”); McConnell, 540 U. S., at 274 (opinion of 
Thomas, J.).  It permits the Government to ban the political 
speech  of  millions of associations  of  citizens.  See  Statistics 
of  Income  2  (5.8  million  for-proﬁt  corporations  ﬁled  2006 
tax  returns).  Most  of  these  are  small  corporations  without 
large  amounts  of  wealth.  See  Supp.  Brief  for  Chamber  of 
Commerce  of  the  United  States  of  America  as  Amicus  Cu­
riae 1,  3  (96%  of  the  3  million businesses  that  belong  to  the 
U.  S.  Chamber  of  Commerce  have  fewer  than  100  employ­
ees);  M.  Keightley,  Congressional  Research  Service  Report 
for Congress, Business Organizational Choices: Taxation and 
Responses to Legislative Changes 10 (2009) (more than 75% 
of corporations whose income is taxed under federal law, see 
26  U. S. C.  § 301,  have  less  than  $1  million  in  receipts  per 
year).  This fact belies the Government’s argument that the 
statute  is  justiﬁed  on  the  ground  that  it  prevents  the  “dis­
torting effects of immense aggregations of wealth.”  Austin, 
494  U. S.,  at  660.  It  is  not  even  aimed  at  amassed  wealth. 
The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach.  The 
Government  has  “mufﬂe[d]  the  voices  that  best  represent 
the most signiﬁcant segments of the economy.”  McConnell, 
supra, at 257–258 (opinion of Scalia, J.).  And “the elector­
ate [has been] deprived of information, knowledge and opin­
ion  vital  to  its  function.”  CIO,  335  U. S.,  at  144  (Rutledge, 
J., concurring in result).  By suppressing the speech of mani­
fold  corporations,  both  for-proﬁt  and  nonproﬁt,  the  Govern­
ment prevents their voices and viewpoints from reaching the 
public  and  advising  voters  on  which  persons  or  entities  are 
hostile  to  their  interests.  Factions  will  necessarily  form  in 
our  Republic,  but  the  remedy  of  “destroying  the  liberty”  of