206
Opinion of the Court
the justifications that adequately support the regulation of express advocacy do not apply to significant quantities of speech encompassed by the definition of electioneering communications.
This argument fails to the extent that the issue ads broadcast during the 30- and 60-day periods preceding federal primary and general elections are the functional equivalent of express advocacy. The justifications for the regulation of express advocacy apply equally to ads aired during those periods if the ads are intended to influence the voters' decisions and have that effect. The precise percentage of issue ads that clearly identified a candidate and were aired during those relatively brief preelection timespans but had no electioneering purpose is a matter of dispute between the parties and among the judges on the District Court. See 251 F. Supp. 2d, at 307-312 (Henderson, J.); id., at 583-587 (Kollar-Kotelly, J.); id., at 796-798 (Leon, J.). Nevertheless, the vast majority of ads clearly had such a purpose. Annenberg Report 13-14; App. 1330-1348 (Krasno & Sorauf Expert Report); 251 F. Supp. 2d, at 573-578 (Kollar-Kotelly, J.); id., at 826-827 (Leon, J.). Moreover, whatever the precise percentage may have been in the past, in the future corporations and unions may finance genuine issue ads during those timeframes by simply avoiding any specific reference to federal candidates, or in doubtful cases by paying for the ad from a segregated fund.88
88 As Justice Kennedy emphasizes in dissent, post, at 326-328, we assume that the interests that justify the regulation of campaign speech might not apply to the regulation of genuine issue ads. The premise that apparently underlies Justice Kennedy's principal submission is a conclusion that the two categories of speech are nevertheless entitled to the same constitutional protection. If that is correct, Justice Kennedy must take issue with the basic holding in Buckley and, indeed, with our recognition in First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765 (1978), that unusually important interests underlie the regulation of corporations' campaign-related speech. In Bellotti we cited Buckley, among other cases, for the proposition that "[p]reserving the integrity of the electoral
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