Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 487.0

326  CITIZENS  UNITED  v.  FEDERAL  ELECTION  COMM’N 

Opinion of the Court 

As  the  District  Court  found,  there  is  no  reasonable  inter­
pretation of Hillary other than as an appeal to vote against 
Senator  Clinton.  Under  the  standard  stated  in  McConnell 
and  further  elaborated  in  WRTL,  the  ﬁlm  qualiﬁes  as  the 
functional equivalent of express advocacy. 

C 

Citizens United further contends that § 441b should be in­
validated  as  applied  to  movies  shown  through  video-on­
demand,  arguing  that  this  delivery  system  has  a  lower  risk 
of  distorting  the  political  process  than  do  television  ads. 
Cf.  McConnell,  supra,  at  207.  On  what  we  might  call  con­
ventional  television,  advertising  spots  reach  viewers  who 
have  chosen  a  channel  or  a  program  for  reasons  unrelated 
to the advertising.  With video-on-demand, by contrast, the 
viewer selects a program after taking “a series of afﬁrmative 
steps”:  subscribing  to  cable;  navigating  through  various 
menus;  and  selecting  the  program.  See  Reno  v.  American 
Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 867 (1997). 

While some means of communication may be less effective 
than  others  at  inﬂuencing  the  public  in  different  contexts, 
any  effort  by  the  Judiciary  to  decide  which  means  of  com­
munications  are  to  be  preferred  for  the  particular  type  of 
message and speaker would raise questions as to the courts’ 
own  lawful  authority.  Substantial  questions  would  arise  if 
courts were to begin saying what means of speech should be 
preferred or disfavored.  And in all events, those differenti­
ations might soon prove to be irrelevant or outdated by tech­
nologies  that  are  in  rapid  ﬂux.  See  Turner  Broadcasting 
System, Inc. v.  FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 639 (1994). 

Courts,  too,  are  bound  by  the  First  Amendment.  We 
must  decline  to  draw,  and  then  redraw,  constitutional  lines 
based on the particular media or technology used to dissemi­
nate  political  speech  from  a  particular  speaker.  It  must  be 
noted,  moreover,  that  this  undertaking  would  require  sub­
stantial  litigation  over  an  extended  time,  all  to  interpret  a