Cite as: 540 U. S. 93 (2003)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
§ 608(e)(1) as limited to communications that include explicit words of advocacy of election or defeat of a candidate." Id., at 43.
The joint opinion argues that Buckley adopted this narrow reading only to avoid addressing a constitutional question. "[T]he concept of express advocacy and the concomitant class of magic words were born of an effort to avoid constitutional infirmities," concludes the joint opinion after examining the language of Buckley. Ante, at 192. This ignores the fact that the Court then struck down the expenditure limitation precisely because it was too narrow:
"The exacting interpretation of the statutory language necessary to avoid unconstitutional vagueness thus undermines the limitation's effectiveness as a loophole-closing provision by facilitating circumvention by those seeking to exert improper influence upon a candidate or officeholder. It would naively underestimate the ingenuity and resourcefulness of persons and groups desiring to buy influence to believe that they would have much difficulty devising expenditures that skirted the restriction on express advocacy of election or defeat but nevertheless benefited the candidate's campaign. Yet no substantial societal interest would be served by a loophole-closing provision designed to check corruption that permitted unscrupulous persons and organizations to expend unlimited sums of money in order to obtain improper influence over candidates for elective office." 424 U. S., at 45.
Far from saving the provision from constitutional doubt, the Court read the provision in such a way as to guarantee its unconstitutionality. If there were some possibility that regulation of communications without words of express advocacy were constitutional, the provision would have to have been read to include these communications, and the constitu-
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