Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 639.0

478  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Opinion of Stevens, J. 

lar  shareholder  might  disapprove.  But  those  expenditures 
do  not  implicate  the  selection  of  public  ofﬁcials,  an  area  in 
which “the interests of unwilling . . . corporate shareholders 
[in  not  being]  forced  to  subsidize  that  speech”  “are  at  their 
zenith.”  Austin, 494 U. S., at  677 (Brennan, J., concurring). 
And  in  any  event,  the  question  is  whether  shareholder  pro­
tection  provides  a  basis  for  regulating  expenditures  in  the 
weeks  before  an  election,  not  whether  additional  types  of 
corporate  communications  might  similarly  be  conditioned 
on voluntariness. 

Recognizing  the  limits  of  the  shareholder  protection  ra­
tionale, the  Austin Court  did not  hold it  out as an  adequate 
and  independent  ground  for  sustaining  the  statute  in  ques­
tion.  Rather,  the  Court  applied  it  to  reinforce  the  anti-
distortion  rationale,  in  two  main  ways.  First,  the  problem 
of  dissenting  shareholders  shows  that  even  if  electioneer­
ing  expenditures  can  advance  the  political  views  of  some 
members  of  a  corporation,  they  will  often  compromise  the 
views  of  others.  See,  e. g.,  id.,  at  663  (discussing  risk  that 
corporation’s “members may be . . .  reluctant to withdraw as 
members  even  if  they  disagree  with  [its]  political  expres­
sion”).  Second,  it  provides  an  additional  reason,  beyond 
the  distinctive  legal  attributes  of  the  corporate  form,  for 
doubting  that  these  “expenditures  reﬂect  actual  public 
support  for  the  political  ideas  espoused,”  id.,  at  660.  The 
shareholder protection rationale, in other words, bolsters the 
conclusion  that  restrictions  on  corporate  electioneering  can 
serve  both  speakers’  and  listeners’  interests,  as  well  as  the 
anticorruption interest.  And it supplies yet another reason 
why  corporate  expenditures  merit  less  protection  than  indi­
vidual expenditures. 

V 

Today’s decision is backwards in many senses.  It elevates 
the  majority’s  agenda  over  the  litigants’  submissions,  facial 
attacks  over  as-applied  claims,  broad  constitutional  theories