Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 632.0

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

471 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

540 U. S., at 144 (quoting Shrink Missouri, 528 U. S., at 390). 
To  the  extent  that  corporations  are  allowed  to  exert  undue 
inﬂuence  in  electoral  races,  the  speech  of  the  eventual  win­
ners of those races may also be chilled.  Politicians who fear 
that a certain corporation can make or break their reelection 
chances  may  be  cowed  into  silence  about  that  corporation. 
On  a  variety  of  levels,  unregulated  corporate  electioneering 
might  diminish  the  ability  of  citizens  to  “hold  ofﬁcials  ac­
countable  to the  people,” ante,  at  339, and  disserve the  goal 
of  a  public  debate  that  is  “uninhibited,  robust,  and  wide-
open,”  New  York  Times  Co.  v.  Sullivan,  376  U. S.  254,  270 
(1964).  At  the  least,  I  stress  again,  a  legislature  is  entitled 
to  credit  these  concerns  and  to  take  tailored  measures  in 
response. 

The  majority’s  unwillingness  to  distinguish  between  cor­
porations  and  humans  similarly  blinds  it  to  the  possibility 
that  corporations’  “war  chests”  and  their  special  “advan­
tages”  in  the  legal  realm,  Austin,  494  U. S.,  at  659  (internal 
quotation  marks  omitted),  may  translate  into  special  advan­
tages in the market for legislation.  When large numbers of 
citizens  have  a  common  stake  in  a  measure  that  is  under 
consideration, it may be very difﬁcult for them to coordinate 
resources  on  behalf  of  their  position.  The  corporate  form, 
by contrast, “provides a simple way to channel rents to only 
those  who  have  paid  their  dues,  as  it  were.  If  you  do  not 
own  stock,  you  do  not  beneﬁt  from  the  larger  dividends  or 
appreciation  in  the  stock  price  caused  by  the  passage  of 
private  interest  legislation.”  Sitkoff,  Corporate  Political 
Speech,  Political  Extortion,  and  the  Competition  for  Corpo­
rate  Charters,  69  U.  Chi. L.  Rev.  1103,  1113  (2002).  Corpo­
rations, that is, are uniquely equipped to seek laws that favor 
their  owners,  not  simply  because  they  have  a  lot  of  money 
but because of their legal and organizational structure.  Re­
move  all  restrictions  on  their  electioneering,  and  the  door 
may  be  opened  to  a  type  of  rent  seeking  that  is  “far  more 
destructive” than what noncorporations are capable of.