Cite as: 558 U. S. ____ (2010) 65 Opinion of STEVENS, J. tially interchangeable with direct contributions in their capacity to generate quid pro quo arrangements. In an age in which money and television ads are the coin of the campaign realm, it is hardly surprising that corporations deployed these ads to curry favor with, and to gain influ­ ence over, public officials. The majority appears to think it decisive that the BCRA record does not contain “direct examples of votes being exchanged for . . . expenditures.” Ante, at 45 (internal quotation marks omitted). It would have been quite re­ markable if Congress had created a record detailing such behavior by its own Members. Proving that a specific vote was exchanged for a specific expenditure has always been next to impossible: Elected officials have diverse motiva­ tions, and no one will acknowledge that he sold a vote. Yet, even if “[i]ngratiation and access . . . are not corrup­ tion” themselves, ibid., they are necessary prerequisites to it; they can create both the opportunity for, and the ap­ pearance of, quid pro quo arrangements. The influx of unlimited corporate money into the electoral realm also creates new opportunities for the mirror image of quid pro quo deals: threats, both explicit and implicit. Starting today, corporations with large war chests to deploy on electioneering may find democratically elected bodies becoming much more attuned to their interests. The majority both misreads the facts and draws the wrong conclusions when it suggests that the BCRA record pro­ vides “only scant evidence that independent expenditures . . . ingratiate,” and that, “in any event,” none of it mat­ ters. Ibid. In her analysis of the record, Judge Kollar-Kotelly documented the pervasiveness of this ingratiation and explained its significance under the majority’s own touch­ stone for defining the scope of the anticorruption ration­ ale, Buckley. See McConnell, 251 F. Supp. 2d, at 555–560, 622–625. Witnesses explained how political parties and