Cite as: 558 U. S. ____ (2010) 45 Opinion of STEVENS, J. This principle was carried forward when Congress enacted comprehensive campaign finance reform in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA), 86 Stat. 3, which retained the restriction on using general treasury funds for contributions and expenditures, 2 U. S. C. §441b(a). FECA codified the option for corporations and unions to create PACs to finance contributions and expen­ ditures forbidden to the corporation or union itself. §441b(b). By the time Congress passed FECA in 1971, the bar on corporate contributions and expenditures had become such an accepted part of federal campaign finance regulation that when a large number of plaintiffs, including several nonprofit corporations, challenged virtually every aspect of the Act in Buckley, 424 U. S. 1, no one even bothered to argue that the bar as such was unconstitutional. Buckley famously (or infamously) distinguished direct contribu­ tions from independent expenditures, id., at 58–59, but its silence on corporations only reinforced the understanding that corporate expenditures could be treated differently from individual expenditures. “Since our decision in Buck ley, Congress’ power to prohibit corporations and unions from using funds in their treasuries to finance advertise­ ments expressly advocating the election or defeat of candi­ dates in federal elections has been firmly embedded in our law.” McConnell, 540 U. S., at 203. Thus, it was unremarkable, in a 1982 case holding that Congress could bar nonprofit corporations from soliciting nonmembers for PAC funds, that then-Justice Rehnquist wrote for a unanimous Court that Congress’ “careful legis­ lative adjustment of the federal electoral laws, in a cau­ tious advance, step by step, to account for the particular legal and economic attributes of corporations . . . warrants considerable deference,” and “reflects a permissible as­ —————— of Powell, J., joined by Burger, C. J.).