244
Opinion of the Court
To the contrary, we have discussed the speakers' interests together with the broadcasters' interests because the two sets of interests substantially overlap. For example, the speakers' vagueness argument is no different from the broadcasters', and it fails for the same reasons, e. g., the fact that BCRA § 504's language is just as definite and precise as other language that we today uphold. See supra, at 241.
We have separately discussed the one and only speech-related claim advanced on behalf of candidates (or other speakers) that differs from the claims set forth by the broadcasters. See supra, at 242-243. This is the claim that the statute's disclosure requirements will require candidates to reveal their political strategies to opponents. We just said, and we now repeat, that BCRA § 504 can be applied, in a significant number of cases, without requiring any such political-strategy disclosure—either because disclosure in many cases will not create any such risk or because the FCC may promulgate rules requiring disclosure only after any such risk disappears, or both.
Moreover, candidates (or other speakers) whom § 504 affects adversely in this way (or in other ways) remain free to challenge the lawfulness of FCC implementing regulations and to challenge the constitutionality of § 504 as applied. To find that the speech-related interests of candidates and others may be vindicated in an as-applied challenge is not to "ignor[e]" those interests.
Second, The Chief Justice says that "the Government, in its brief, proffers no interest whatever to support § 504 as a whole," adding that the existence of "pre-existing unchallenged agency regulations imposing similar disclosure requirements" cannot "compel the conclusion that § 504 is constitutional," nor somehow "relieve the Government of its burden of advancing a constitutionally sufficient justification for § 504." Post, at 359-360, 361 (dissenting opinion).
Again The Chief Justice is correct in saying that the mere existence of similar FCC regulation-imposed require-
Page: Index Previous 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007