Cite as: 558 U. S. ____ (2010) 71 Opinion of STEVENS, J. reputable attempt at legislative self-dealing rather than an earnest effort to facilitate First Amendment values and safeguard the legitimacy of our political system. This possibility, the Court apparently believes, licenses it to run roughshod over Congress’ handiwork. In my view, we should instead start by acknowledging that “Congress surely has both wisdom and experience in these matters that is far superior to ours.” Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm. v. FEC, 518 U. S. 604, 650 (1996) (STEVENS, J., dissenting). Many of our campaign finance precedents explicitly and forcefully affirm the propriety of such presumptive deference. See, e.g., McConnell, 540 U. S., at 158; Beaumont, 539 U. S., at 155–156; NRWC, 459 U. S., at 209–210. Moreover, “[j]udicial deference is particularly warranted where, as here, we deal with a congressional judgment that has remained essentially unchanged throughout a century of careful legislative adjustment.” Beaumont, 539 U. S., at 162, n. 9 (internal quotation marks omitted); cf. Shrink Missouri, 528 U. S., at 391 (“The quantum of empirical evidence needed to satisfy heightened judicial scrutiny of legislative judgments will vary up or down with the nov­ elty and plausibility of the justification raised”). In Amer­ ica, incumbent legislators pass the laws that govern cam­ paign finance, just like all other laws. To apply a level of scrutiny that effectively bars them from regulating elec­ tioneering whenever there is the faintest whiff of self­ interest, is to deprive them of the ability to regulate electioneering. This is not to say that deference would be appropriate if there were a solid basis for believing that a legislative action was motivated by the desire to protect incumbents or that it will degrade the competitiveness of the electoral process.68 See League of United Latin American Citizens —————— 68 JUSTICE BREYER has suggested that we strike the balance as fol­