Cite as: 558 U. S. ____ (2010) 89 Opinion of STEVENS, J. protection provides a basis for regulating expenditures in the weeks before an election, not whether additional types of corporate communications might similarly be condi­ tioned on voluntariness. Recognizing the limits of the shareholder protection rationale, the Austin Court did not hold it out as an ade­ quate and independent ground for sustaining the statute in question. Rather, the Court applied it to reinforce the antidistortion rationale, in two main ways. First, the problem of dissenting shareholders shows that even if electioneering expenditures can advance the political views of some members of a corporation, they will often compromise the views of others. See, e.g., id., at 663 (dis­ cussing risk that corporation’s “members may be . . . reluc­ tant to withdraw as members even if they disagree with [its] political expression”). Second, it provides an addi­ tional reason, beyond the distinctive legal attributes of the corporate form, for doubting that these “expenditures reflect actual public support for the political ideas es­ poused,” id., at 660. The shareholder protection rationale, in other words, bolsters the conclusion that restrictions on corporate electioneering can serve both speakers’ and listeners’ interests, as well as the anticorruption interest. And it supplies yet another reason why corporate expendi­ tures merit less protection than individual expenditures. V Today’s decision is backwards in many senses. It ele­ vates the majority’s agenda over the litigants’ submis­ sions, facial attacks over as-applied claims, broad constitu­ tional theories over narrow statutory grounds, individual dissenting opinions over precedential holdings, assertion over tradition, absolutism over empiricism, rhetoric over reality. Our colleagues have arrived at the conclusion that Austin must be overruled and that §203 is facially uncon­ stitutional only after mischaracterizing both the reach and