42 CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N Opinion of STEVENS, J. 2. Legislative and Judicial Interpretation A century of more recent history puts to rest any notion that today’s ruling is faithful to our First Amendment tradition. At the federal level, the express distinction between corporate and individual political spending on elections stretches back to 1907, when Congress passed the Tillman Act, ch. 420, 34 Stat. 864, banning all corpo­ rate contributions to candidates. The Senate Report on the legislation observed that “[t]he evils of the use of [corporate] money in connection with political elections are so generally recognized that the committee deems it un­ necessary to make any argument in favor of the general purpose of this measure. It is in the interest of good gov­ ernment and calculated to promote purity in the selection of public officials.” S. Rep. No. 3056, 59th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1906). President Roosevelt, in his 1905 annual message to Congress, declared: “ ‘All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be for­ bidden by law; directors should not be permitted to use stockholders’ money for such purposes; and, more­ over, a prohibition of this kind would be, as far as it went, an effective method of stopping the evils aimed at in corrupt practices acts.’ ” United States v. Auto mobile Workers, 352 U. S. 567, 572 (1957) (quoting 40 Cong. Rec. 96). The Court has surveyed the history leading up to the Tillman Act several times, see WRTL, 551 U. S., at 508– 510 (Souter, J., dissenting); McConnell, 540 U. S., at 115; Automobile Workers, 352 U. S., at 570–575, and I will refrain from doing so again. It is enough to say that the Act was primarily driven by two pressing concerns: first, the enormous power corporations had come to wield in federal elections, with the accompanying threat of both actual corruption and a public perception of corruption;