8 CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N Opinion of STEVENS, J. “Claims of facial invalidity often rest on speculation,” and consequently “raise the risk of premature interpretation of statutes on the basis of factually barebones records.” Id., at 450 (internal quotation marks omitted). In this case, the record is not simply incomplete or unsatisfactory; it is nonexistent. Congress crafted BCRA in response to a virtual mountain of research on the corruption that previ­ ous legislation had failed to avert. The Court now negates Congress’ efforts without a shred of evidence on how §203 or its state-law counterparts have been affecting any entity other than Citizens United.5 Faced with this gaping empirical hole, the majority throws up its hands. Were we to confine our inquiry to Citizens United’s as-applied challenge, it protests, we would commence an “extended” process of “draw[ing], and then redraw[ing], constitutional lines based on the par­ ticular media or technology used to disseminate political speech from a particular speaker.” Ante, at 9. While tacitly acknowledging that some applications of §203 might be found constitutional, the majority thus posits a future in which novel First Amendment standards must —————— 5 In fact, we do not even have a good evidentiary record of how §203 has been affecting Citizens United, which never submitted to the District Court the details of Hillary’s funding or its own finances. We likewise have no evidence of how §203 and comparable state laws were expected to affect corporations and unions in the future. It is true, as the majority points out, that the McConnell Court evaluated the facial validity of §203 in light of an extensive record. See ante, at 15. But that record is not before us in this case. And in any event, the majority’s argument for striking down §203 depends on its contention that the statute has proved too “chilling” in practice—and in particular on the contention that the controlling opinion in WRTL, 551 U. S. 449 (2007), failed to bring sufficient clarity and “breathing space” to this area of law. See ante, at 12, 16–20. We have no record with which to assess that claim. The Court complains at length about the burdens of complying with §203, but we have no meaningful evidence to show how regulated corporations and unions have experienced its restrictions.