Cite as: 558 U. S. ____ (2010) 81 Opinion of STEVENS, J. diture restrictions of [2 U. S. C.] §441b are thus meant to ensure that competition among actors in the political arena is truly competition among ideas.” MCFL, 479 U. S., at 259. In addition to this immediate drowning out of noncorpo­ rate voices, there may be deleterious effects that follow soon thereafter. Corporate “domination” of electioneering, Austin, 494 U. S., at 659, can generate the impression that corporations dominate our democracy. When citizens turn on their televisions and radios before an election and hear only corporate electioneering, they may lose faith in their capacity, as citizens, to influence public policy. A Gov­ ernment captured by corporate interests, they may come to believe, will be neither responsive to their needs nor willing to give their views a fair hearing. The predictable result is cynicism and disenchantment: an increased perception that large spenders “ ‘call the tune’ ” and a reduced “ ‘willingness of voters to take part in democratic governance.’ ” McConnell, 540 U. S., at 144 (quoting Shrink Missouri, 528 U. S., at 390). To the extent that corporations are allowed to exert undue influence in elec­ toral races, the speech of the eventual winners of those races may also be chilled. Politicians who fear that a certain corporation can make or break their reelection chances may be cowed into silence about that corporation. On a variety of levels, unregulated corporate electioneer­ ing might diminish the ability of citizens to “hold officials accountable to the people,” ante, at 23, and disserve the goal of a public debate that is “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 270 (1964). At the least, I stress again, a legislature is entitled to credit these concerns and to take tailored measures in response. The majority’s unwillingness to distinguish between corporations and humans similarly blinds it to the possi­ bility that corporations’ “war chests” and their special