86 CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N Opinion of STEVENS, J. the cause of self-government today. 2. Shareholder Protection There is yet another way in which laws such as §203 can serve First Amendment values. Interwoven with Austin’s concern to protect the integrity of the electoral process is a concern to protect the rights of shareholders from a kind of coerced speech: electioneering expenditures that do not “reflec[t] [their] support.” 494 U. S., at 660–661. When corporations use general treasury funds to praise or attack a particular candidate for office, it is the shareholders, as the residual claimants, who are effectively footing the bill. Those shareholders who disagree with the corporation’s electoral message may find their financial investments being used to undermine their political convictions. The PAC mechanism, by contrast, helps assure that those who pay for an electioneering communication actu­ ally support its content and that managers do not use general treasuries to advance personal agendas. Ibid. It “ ‘allows corporate political participation without the temp­ tation to use corporate funds for political influence, quite possibly at odds with the sentiments of some shareholders or members.’ ” McConnell, 540 U. S., at 204 (quoting Beaumont, 539 U. S., at 163). A rule that privileges the use of PACs thus does more than facilitate the political speech of like-minded shareholders; it also curbs the rent seeking behavior of executives and respects the views of dissenters. Austin’s acceptance of restrictions on general treasury spending “simply allows people who have in­ vested in the business corporation for purely economic reasons”—the vast majority of investors, one assumes—“to avoid being taken advantage of, without sacrificing their economic objectives.” Winkler, Beyond Bellotti, 32 Loyola (LA) L. Rev. 133, 201 (1998). The concern to protect dissenting shareholders and union members has a long history in campaign finance