Court Opinion

ID: 9430759
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:31.021021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:26.002528
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice Rehnquist,
with whom Justice White, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
In FEC v. National Right to Work Committee, 459 U. S. 197, 209-210 (1982) (NRWC), the Court unanimously endorsed the “legislative judgment that the special characteristics of the corporate structure require particularly careful regulation.” I continue to believe that this judgment, as reflected in 2 U. S. C. §441b, is constitutionally sound and entitled to substantial deference, and therefore dissent from the Court’s decision to “second-guess a legislative determination as to the need for prophylactic measures where corruption is the evil feared.” Id., at 210. Though I agree that the expenditures in this case violated the terms of § 441b, and accordingly join Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion, I cannot accept the conclusion that the statutory provisions are uncon*267stitutional as applied to appellee Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL).
As the Court recognizes, the segregated fund requirements of §441b are simply a contemporary chapter in the “long history of regulation of corporate political activity.” Ante, at 256. See NRWC, supra, at 208-209; United States v. Automobile Workers, 352 U. S. 567, 570-584 (1957). In approving this sort of regulation, our decisions have found at least two legitimate concerns arising from corporate campaign spending. First, §441b and its predecessors were enacted to rid the political process of the corruption and appearance of corruption that accompany contributions to and expenditures for candidates from corporate funds. See NRWC, supra, at 207-208; First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 788, n. 26 (1978); Automobile Workers, supra, at 570-575. Second, such regulation serves to protect the interests of individuals who pay money into a corporation or union for purposes other than the support of candidates for public office. See NRWC, supra, at 208; Pipefitters v. United States, 407 U. S. 385, 414-415 (1972); United States v. CIO, 335 U. S. 106, 113 (1948). In light of the “special advantages that the State confers on the corporate form,” FEC v. National Conservative Political Action Committee, 470 U. S. 480, 495 (1985) (NCPAC), we have considered these dangers sufficient to justify restrictions on corporate political activity. See also California Medical Assn. v. FEC, 453 U. S. 182, 201 (1981).
The Court, rejecting the “teachings of our earlier decisions,” NRWC, supra, at 210, and the judgment of Congress,1 confidently concludes that these dangers are not *268present here. “Groups such as MCFL,” the Court assures us, do not pose “the potential for unfair deployment of wealth for political purposes.” Ante, at 259. Because MCFL was formed to disseminate political ideas, we are told, the money it spends — at least in the form of independent expenditures — reflects the political ideas for which it stands without the threat or appearance of corruption. Ante, at 258-260. Nor does the Court find any need to protect the interests of contributors to MCFL by requiring the establishment of a separate segregated fund for its political expenditures. Individual contributors can simply withhold their contributions if they disagree with the corporation’s choices; those who continue to give will be protected by requiring notice to them that their money might be used for political purposes. Ante, at 261-262.
I do not dispute that the threat from corporate political activity will vary depending on the particular characteristics of a given corporation; it is obvious that large and successful corporations with resources to fund a political war chest constitute a more potent threat to the political process than less successful business corporations or nonprofit corporations. It may also be that those supporting some nonbusiness corporations will identify with the corporations’ political views more frequently than the average shareholder of General Motors would support the political activities of that corporation. These distinctions among corporations, however, are “distinctions in degree” that do not amount to “differences in kind.” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 30 (1976) (per curiam). Cf. NCPAC, supra, at 498-499. As such, they are more properly drawn by the Legislature than by the Judiciary. See Buckley, supra, at 30. Congress expressed its judgment in § 441b that the threat posed by corporate political activity warrants a prophylactic measure applicable to all *269groups that organize in the corporate form. Our previous cases have expressed a reluctance to fine-tune such judgments; I would adhere to that counsel here.
I would have thought the distinctions drawn by the Court today largely foreclosed by our decision in NRWC, supra. We considered there the requirement of § 441b(b)(4)(C) that separate segregated funds solicit only from “members.” The corporation whose fund was at issue was not unlike MCFL— a nonprofit corporation without capital stock, formed to educate the public on an issue of perceived public significance. See NRWC, 459 U. S., at 199-200. We were asked to adopt a broad definition of members because the solicitations involved “would neither corrupt officials nor coerce members of the corporation holding minority political views . . . .” Id., at 206. We had no difficulty concluding that such an approach was unnecessary and that the judgment of Congress to regulate corporate political activity was entitled to “considerable deference.” Id., at 209. Most significantly, we declined the invitation to modify the statute to account for the characteristics of different corporations: “While §441b restricts the solicitation of corporations and labor unions without great resources, as well as those more fortunately situated, we accept Congress’ judgment that it is the potential for such influence that demands regulation. Nor will we second-guess a legislative determination as to the need for prophylactic measures where corruption is the evil feared.” Id., at 210. We saw no reason why the governmental interest in preventing both actual corruption and the appearance of corruption could not “be accomplished by treating unions, corporations, and similar organizations differently from individuals.” Id., at 210-211.
The distinction between corporate and noncorporate activity was not diminished in NCPAC, supra, where we found fatally overbroad the $1,000 limitation in 26 U. S. C. § 9012(f) on independent expenditures by “political committees.” Our conclusion rested in part on the fact that § 9012(f) regulated *270not only corporations but rather “indiscriminately lump[ed] with corporations any ‘committee, association or organization.’” NCPAC, 470 U. S., at 500. NCPAC accordingly continued to recognize what had been, until today, an acceptable distinction, grounded in the judgment of the political branch, between political activity by corporate actors and that by organizations not benefiting from “the corporate shield which the State [has] granted to corporations as a form of quid pro quo” for various regulations. Citizens Against Rent Control v. Berkeley, 454 U. S. 290, 300 (1981) (Rehnquist, J., concurring).2
The Court explains the decisions in NRWC and NCPAC by reference to another distinction found in our decisions — that between contributions and independent expenditures. See Buckley, supra, at 19-23. This is admittedly a distinction between the facts of NRWC and those of NCPAC, but it does not warrant a different result in view of our longstanding approval of limitations on corporate spending and of the type of regulation involved here. The distinction between contributions and independent expenditures is not a line separating black from white. The statute here — though involving independent expenditures — is not nearly so drastic as the “wholesale restriction of clearly protected conduct” at issue in NCPAC, supra, at 501. It regulates instead the form of otherwise unregulated spending. A separate segregated fund formed by MCFL may use contributions it receives, without limit, on political expenditures.3 As the Court cor*271rectly notes, the regulation of § 441b is not without burdens, but it remains wholly different in character from that which we condemned in NCPAC. In these circumstances, I would defer to the congressional judgment that corporations are a distinct category with respect to which this sort of regulation is constitutionally permissible.4
The basically legislative character of the Court’s decision is dramatically illustrated by its effort to carve out a constitutional niche for “[g]roups such as MCFL.” Ante, at 259. The three-part test gratuitously announced in today’s dicta, ante, at 263-264, adds to a well-defined prohibition a vague and barely adumbrated exception certain to result in confusion and costly litigation. If we sat as a council of revision to modify legislative judgments, I would hesitate to join the Court’s effort because of this fact alone. But we do not sit in that capacity; we are obliged to leave the drawing of lines in cases such as this to Congress if those lines are within constitutional bounds. Believing that the Act of Congress in question here passes this test, I dissent from the Court’s contrary conclusion.

 It is, of course, clear that Congress intended § 441b to apply to corporations like MCFL. The section makes it unlawful for “any corporation. . . to make a contribution or expenditure in connection with” certain federal elections. 2 U. S. C. § 441b(a) (emphasis added). Other provisions of the statutory scheme make clear that corporations “without capital stock” are within the regulatory sphere. See § 441b(b)(4)(C). This is accordingly *268not a case of statutory construction, but rather one in which the Court rejects the judgment of Congress that such regulation is appropriate. Cf. United States v. CIO, 335 U. S. 106 (1948).

 Only once have we found unconstitutional a regulation that restricted only corporate political activity. First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765 (1978). As we noted in FEC v. National Right to Work Committee, 459 U. S. 197, 210, n. 7 (1982), our decision in Bellotti did not consider the validity of laws, like § 441b, aimed at the threat of corruption in candidate elections. See Bellotti, supra, at 788, n. 26.

 Because the corporation itself may use its own treasury money to pay the fund’s administrative costs and to solicit contributions to the fund, 2 U. S. C. § 441b(b)(4), every dollar of those contributions is available for political purposes.

 The statutory scheme at issue in this ease does not require us to consider the validity of a direct and absolute limitation on independent expenditures by corporations.