10 CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N Opinion of the Court that, in the end, would themselves be questionable. First Amendment standards, however, “must give the benefit of any doubt to protecting rather than stifling speech.” WRTL, 551 U. S., at 469 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.) (citing New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 269–270 (1964)). D Citizens United also asks us to carve out an exception to §441b’s expenditure ban for nonprofit corporate political speech funded overwhelmingly by individuals. As an alternative to reconsidering Austin, the Government also seems to prefer this approach. This line of analysis, how ever, would be unavailing. In MCFL, the Court found unconstitutional §441b’s restrictions on corporate expenditures as applied to non profit corporations that were formed for the sole purpose of promoting political ideas, did not engage in business activities, and did not accept contributions from for-profit corporations or labor unions. 479 U. S., at 263–264; see also 11 CFR §114.10. BCRA’s so-called Wellstone Amend ment applied §441b’s expenditure ban to all nonprofit corporations. See 2 U. S. C. §441b(c)(6); McConnell, 540 U. S., at 209. McConnell then interpreted the Wellstone Amendment to retain the MCFL exemption to §441b’s expenditure prohibition. 540 U. S., at 211. Citizens United does not qualify for the MCFL exemption, however, since some funds used to make the movie were donations from for-profit corporations. The Government suggests we could find BCRA’s Wellstone Amendment unconstitutional, sever it from the statute, and hold that Citizens United’s speech is exempt from §441b’s ban under BCRA’s Snowe-Jeffords Amend ment, §441b(c)(2). See Tr. of Oral Arg. 37–38 (Sept. 9, 2009). The Snowe-Jeffords Amendment operates as a backup provision that only takes effect if the Wellstone