78
CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N
Opinion of STEVENS, J.
the governmental interests explained above, and in recog
nition of the fact that such restrictions are not direct
restraints on speech but rather on its financing. See, e.g.,
Randall, 548 U. S., at 273 (dissenting opinion). But those
restrictions concededly present a tougher case, because the
primary conduct of actual, flesh-and-blood persons is
involved. Some of those individuals might feel that they
need to spend large sums of money on behalf of a particu
lar candidate to vindicate the intensity of their electoral
preferences. This is obviously not the situation with busi
ness corporations, as their routine practice of giving “sub
stantial sums to both major national parties” makes pellu
cidly clear. McConnell, 540 U. S., at 148. “[C]orporate
participation” in elections, any business executive will tell
you, “is more transactional than ideological.” Supp. Brief
for Committee for Economic Development as Amicus
Curiae 10.
In this transactional spirit, some corporations have
affirmatively urged Congress to place limits on their elec
tioneering communications. These corporations fear that
officeholders will shake them down for supportive ads,
that they will have to spend increasing sums on elections
in an ever-escalating arms race with their competitors,
and that public trust in business will be eroded. See id.,
at 10–19. A system that effectively forces corporations to
use their shareholders’ money both to maintain access to,
and to avoid retribution from, elected officials may ulti
mately prove more harmful than beneficial to many corpo
rations. It can impose a kind of implicit tax.73
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73 Not all corporations support BCRA §203, of course, and not all cor
porations are large business entities or their tax-exempt adjuncts.
Some nonprofit corporations are created for an ideological purpose.
Some closely held corporations are strongly identified with a particular
owner or founder. The fact that §203, like the statute at issue in
Austin, regulates some of these corporations’ expenditures does not
disturb the analysis above. See 494 U. S., at 661–665. Small-business