398
Stevens, J., concurring
souri statute. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is, accordingly, reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Stevens, concurring.
Justice Kennedy suggests that the misuse of soft money tolerated by this Court's misguided decision in Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm. v. Federal Election Comm'n, 518 U. S. 604 (1996), demonstrates the need for a fresh examination of the constitutional issues raised by Congress' enactment of the Federal Election Campaign Acts of 1971 and 1974 and this Court's resolution of those issues in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976) (per curiam). In response to his call for a new beginning, therefore, I make one simple point. Money is property; it is not speech.
Speech has the power to inspire volunteers to perform a multitude of tasks on a campaign trail, on a battleground, or even on a football field. Money, meanwhile, has the power to pay hired laborers to perform the same tasks. It does not follow, however, that the First Amendment provides the same measure of protection to the use of money to accomplish such goals as it provides to the use of ideas to achieve the same results.*
Our Constitution and our heritage properly protect the individual's interest in making decisions about the use of his or her own property. Governmental regulation of such decisions can sometimes be viewed either as "deprivations of lib*Unless, of course, the prohibition entirely forecloses a channel of communication, such as the use of paid petition circulators. See, e. g., Meyer v. Grant, 486 U. S. 414, 424 (1988) ("Colorado's prohibition of paid petition circulators restricts access to the most effective, fundamental, and perhaps economical avenue of political discourse, direct one-on-one communication. . . . The First Amendment protects appellees' right not only to advocate their cause but also to select what they believe to be the most effective means for so doing").
Page: Index Previous 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007