56 CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N Opinion of STEVENS, J. government.’ ” McConnell, 540 U. S., at 206–207, n. 88 (quoting Bellotti, 435 U. S., at 788–789; first alteration in original). These understandings provided the combined impetus behind the Tillman Act in 1907, see Automobile Workers, 352 U. S., at 570–575, the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, see WRTL, 551 U. S., at 511 (Souter, J., dissenting), FECA in 1971, see NRWC, 459 U. S., at 209–210, and BCRA in 2002, see McConnell, 540 U. S., at 126–132. Continuously for over 100 years, this line of “[c]ampaign finance reform has been a series of reactions to docu­ mented threats to electoral integrity obvious to any voter, posed by large sums of money from corporate or union treasuries.” WRTL, 551 U. S., at 522 (Souter, J., dissent­ ing). Time and again, we have recognized these realities in approving measures that Congress and the States have taken. None of the cases the majority cites is to the con­ trary. The only thing new about Austin was the dissent, with its stunning failure to appreciate the legitimacy of interests recognized in the name of democratic integrity since the days of the Progressives. IV Having explained why this is not an appropriate case in which to revisit Austin and McConnell and why these decisions sit perfectly well with “First Amendment princi­ ples,” ante, at 1, 48, I come at last to the interests that are at stake. The majority recognizes that Austin and McConnell may be defended on anticorruption, antidistor­ tion, and shareholder protection rationales. Ante, at 32– 46. It badly errs both in explaining the nature of these rationales, which overlap and complement each other, and in applying them to the case at hand. The Anticorruption Interest Undergirding the majority’s approach to the merits is the claim that the only “sufficiently important governmen­