420
Thomas, J., dissenting
rights' " (quoting Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, 22 (1948))). In short, the right to free speech is a right held by each American, not by Americans en masse. The Court in Buckley provided no basis for suppressing the speech of an individual candidate simply because other candidates (or candidates in the aggregate) may succeed in reaching the voting public. And any such reasoning would fly in the face of the premise of our political system—liberty vested in individual hands safeguards the functioning of our democracy. In the case at hand, the Missouri scheme has a clear and detrimental effect on a candidate such as respondent Fredman, who lacks the advantages of incumbency, name recognition, or substantial personal wealth, but who has managed to attract the support of a relatively small number of dedicated supporters: It forbids his message from reaching the voters. And the silencing of a candidate has consequences for political debate and competition overall. See Arkansas Ed. Television Comm'n v. Forbes, 523 U. S. 666, 692, n. 14 (1998) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (noting that the suppression of a minor candidate's speech may directly affect the outcome of an election); cf. NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 431 (1963) (" 'All political ideas cannot and should not be channeled into the programs of our two major parties. History has amply proved the virtue of political activity by minority, dissident groups . . . ' " (quoting Sweezy v. New Hampshire, supra, at 250-251 (plurality opinion))).
In my view, the Constitution leaves it entirely up to citizens and candidates to determine who shall speak, the means they will use, and the amount of speech sufficient to inform and persuade. Buckley's ratification of the government's attempt to wrest this fundamental right from citizens was error.
III
Today, the majority blindly adopts Buckley's flawed reasoning without so much as pausing to consider the collapse of
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