50 CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N Opinion of STEVENS, J. limits.” ’ ” Ibid. (quoting Beaumont, 539 U. S., at 155, in turn quoting FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Cam paign Comm., 533 U. S. 431, 456, and n. 18 (2001) (Colo rado II); alteration in original). BCRA, we found, is faith­ ful to the compelling governmental interests in “ ‘preserving the integrity of the electoral process, prevent­ ing corruption, . . . sustaining the active, alert responsibil­ ity of the individual citizen in a democracy for the wise conduct of the government,’ ” and maintaining “ ‘the indi­ vidual citizen’s confidence in government.’ ” 540 U. S., at 206–207, n. 88 (quoting Bellotti, 435 U. S., at 788–789; some internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). What made the answer even easier than it might have been otherwise was the option to form PACs, which give corporations, at the least, “a constitutionally sufficient opportunity to engage in” independent expenditures. 540 U. S., at 203. 3. Buckley and Bellotti Against this extensive background of congressional regulation of corporate campaign spending, and our re­ peated affirmation of this regulation as constitutionally sound, the majority dismisses Austin as “a significant departure from ancient First Amendment principles,” ante, at 1 (internal quotation marks omitted). How does the majority attempt to justify this claim? Selected pas­ sages from two cases, Buckley, 424 U. S. 1, and Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, do all of the work. In the Court’s view, Buckley and Bellotti decisively rejected the possibility of distinguishing corporations from natural persons in the 1970’s; it just so happens that in every single case in which the Court has reviewed campaign finance legisla­ tion in the decades since, the majority failed to grasp this truth. The Federal Congress and dozens of state legisla­ tures, we now know, have been similarly deluded. The majority emphasizes Buckley’s statement that