Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 495

334  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Opinion of the Court 

in order to avoid any chilling effect caused by some improper 
interpretation.  See  Part  II–C,  supra.  It  is  well  known 
that the public begins to concentrate on elections only in the 
weeks  immediately  before  they  are  held.  There  are  short 
timeframes  in  which  speech  can  have  inﬂuence.  The  need 
or relevance of the speech will often ﬁrst be apparent at this 
stage in the campaign.  The decision to speak is made in the 
heat of political campaigns, when speakers react to messages 
conveyed by others.  A speaker’s ability to engage in politi­
cal  speech  that  could  have  a  chance  of  persuading  voters  is 
stiﬂed  if the  speaker must  ﬁrst commence  a protracted  law­
suit.  By the time the lawsuit concludes, the election will be 
over  and  the  litigants  in  most  cases  will  have  neither  the 
incentive nor, perhaps, the resources to carry on, even if they 
could establish that the case is not moot because the issue is 
“capable  of  repetition,  yet  evading  review.”  WRTL,  supra, 
at  462  (opinion  of  Roberts,  C.  J.)  (citing  Los  Angeles  v. 
Lyons,  461  U. S.  95,  109  (1983);  Southern  Paciﬁc  Terminal 
Co.  v.  ICC, 219 U. S. 498, 515 (1911)).  Here, Citizens United 
decided  to  litigate  its  case  to  the  end.  Today,  Citizens 
United  ﬁnally  learns,  two  years  after  the  fact,  whether  it 
could  have  spoken  during  the  2008  Presidential  primary— 
long  after  the  opportunity  to  persuade  primary  voters  has 
passed. 

Third  is  the  primary  importance  of  speech  itself  to  the 
integrity  of  the  election  process.  As  additional  rules  are 
created  for  regulating  political  speech,  any  speech  arguably 
within  their  reach  is  chilled.  See  Part  II–A,  supra.  Cam­
paign  ﬁnance  regulations  now  impose  “unique  and  complex 
rules”  on  “71  distinct  entities.”  Brief  for  Seven  Former 
Chairmen of FEC et al. as Amici Curiae 11–12.  These enti­
ties  are  subject  to  separate  rules  for  33  different  types  of 
political speech.  Id., at 14–15, n. 10.  The FEC has adopted 
568 pages of regulations, 1,278 pages of explanations and jus­
tiﬁcations  for those  regulations,  and 1,771  advisory  opinions 
since  1975.  See  id.,  at  6,  n.  7.  In  fact,  after  this  Court  in