Cite as: 512 U. S. 622 (1994)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
cable." Ante, at 648. I cannot agree. It is rare enough that Congress states, in the body of the statute itself, the findings underlying its decision. When it does, it is fair to assume that those findings reflect the basis for the legislative decision, especially when the thrust of the findings is further reflected in the rest of the statute. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 534-535 (1993) (relying on recitals in a city council resolution as evidence of the justifications for an ordinance).
Moreover, it does not seem likely that Congress would make extensive findings merely to show that broadcast television is valuable. The controversial judgment at the heart of the statute is not that broadcast television has some value—obviously it does—but that broadcasters should be preferred over cable programmers. The best explanation for the findings, it seems to me, is that they represent Congress' reasons for adopting this preference; and, according to the findings, these reasons rest in part on the content of broadcasters' speech. To say in the face of the findings that the must-carry rules "impose burdens and confer benefits without reference to the content of speech," ante, at 643, cannot be correct, especially in light of the care with which we must normally approach speaker-based restrictions. See Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575 (1983).
It may well be that Congress also had other, content-neutral, purposes in mind when enacting the statute. But we have never held that the presence of a permissible justification lessens the impropriety of relying in part on an impermissible justification. In fact, we have often struck down statutes as being impermissibly content based even though their primary purpose was indubitably content neutral. See Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc., supra (striking down content-based exemptions in a general revenue measure); Regan v. Time, Inc., supra (striking down content-based exemptions in a general anticounterfeiting statute);
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