30 CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N Opinion of STEVENS, J. contrast to the blanket rule that the majority espouses, our cases recognize that the Government’s interests may be more or less compelling with respect to different classes of speakers,47 cf. Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Min nesota Comm’r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575, 585 (1983) (“[D]ifferential treatment” is constitutionally suspect “unless justified by some special characteristic” of the regulated class of speakers (emphasis added)), and that the constitutional rights of certain categories of speakers, in certain contexts, “ ‘are not automatically coextensive with the rights’ ” that are normally accorded to members of our society, Morse v. Frederick, 551 U. S. 393, 396–397, 404 (2007) (quoting Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 682 (1986)). The free speech guarantee thus does not render every other public interest an illegitimate basis for qualifying a speaker’s autonomy; society could scarcely function if it did. It is fair to say that our First Amendment doctrine has “frowned on” certain identity-based distinctions, Los Angeles Police Dept. v. United Reporting Publishing Corp., —————— cause they “stand only for the proposition that there are certain gov­ ernmental functions that cannot operate without some restrictions on particular kinds of speech.” Ante, at 25. The majority’s creative sug­ gestion that these cases stand only for that one proposition is quite implausible. In any event, the proposition lies at the heart of this case, as Congress and half the state legislatures have concluded, over many decades, that their core functions of administering elections and pass­ ing legislation cannot operate effectively without some narrow restric­ tions on corporate electioneering paid for by general treasury funds. 47 Outside of the law, of course, it is a commonplace that the identity and incentives of the speaker might be relevant to an assessment of his speech. See Aristotle, Poetics 43–44 (M. Heath transl. 1996) (“In evaluating any utterance or action, one must take into account not just the moral qualities of what is actually done or said, but also the iden­ tity of the agent or speaker, the addressee, the occasion, the means, and the motive”). The insight that the identity of speakers is a proper subject of regulatory concern, it bears noting, motivates the disclaimer and disclosure provisions that the Court today upholds.