34 CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N Opinion of STEVENS, J. form of speech.52 In short, the Court dramatically overstates its critique of identity-based distinctions, without ever explaining why corporate identity demands the same treatment as indi­ vidual identity. Only the most wooden approach to the First Amendment could justify the unprecedented line it seeks to draw. Our First Amendment Tradition A third fulcrum of the Court’s opinion is the idea that Austin and McConnell are radical outliers, “aberration[s],” in our First Amendment tradition. Ante, at 39; see also ante, at 45, 56 (professing fidelity to “our law and our tradition”). The Court has it exactly backwards. It is today’s holding that is the radical departure from what had been settled First Amendment law. To see why, it is useful to take a long view. 1. Original Understandings Let us start from the beginning. The Court invokes “ancient First Amendment principles,” ante, at 1 (internal quotation marks omitted), and original understandings, ante, at 37–38, to defend today’s ruling, yet it makes only a perfunctory attempt to ground its analysis in the princi­ ples or understandings of those who drafted and ratified the Amendment. Perhaps this is because there is not a scintilla of evidence to support the notion that anyone —————— 52 See A. Bickel, The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress 59–60 (1978); A. Meiklejohn, Political Freedom: The Constitutional Powers of the People 39–40 (1965); Tokaji, First Amendment Equal Protection: On Discretion, Inequality, and Participation, 101 Mich. L. Rev. 2409, 2508–2509 (2003). Of course, voting is not speech in a pure or formal sense, but then again neither is a campaign expenditure; both are nevertheless communicative acts aimed at influencing electoral out­ comes. Cf. Strauss, Corruption, Equality, and Campaign Finance Reform, 94 Colum. L. Rev. 1369, 1383–1384 (1994) (hereinafter Strauss).