Cite as: 540 U. S. 93 (2003)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
struction' must apply to the expenditure limitation," as if that somehow proved its point. Ante, at 192, n. 76 (emphasis in original). The fact that the MCFL Court said this does not establish anything, of course; adopting a narrow construction of a statute "in order to avoid problems of over-breadth," 479 U. S., at 248, is perfectly consistent with a holding that, lacking the narrowing construction, the statute would be overly broad, i. e., unconstitutional.
The defendants' principal argument in response is that
"it would be bizarre to conclude that the Constitution permits Congress to prohibit the use of corporate or union general treasury funds for electioneering advertisements, but that the only standard that it can constitutionally use (express advocacy) is one that misses the vast majority (88.6 percent) of advertisements that candidates themselves use for electioneering." Brief for FEC et al. in No. 02-1674 et al., p. 103 (emphasis in original).
The joint opinion echoes this, stating that the express advocacy line "cannot be squared with our longstanding recognition that the presence or absence of magic words cannot meaningfully distinguish electioneering speech from a true issue ad." Ante, at 193. First, the presence of the "magic words" does differentiate in a meaningful way between categories of speech. Speech containing the "magic words" is "unambiguously campaign related," Buckley, supra, at 81, while speech without these words is not. Second, it is far from bizarre to suggest that (potentially regulable) speech that is in practice impossible to differentiate from fully protected speech must be fully protected. It is, rather, part and parcel of First Amendment first principles. See, e. g., Free Speech Coalition, 535 U. S., at 255 ("The Government may not suppress lawful speech as the means to suppress unlawful speech. Protected speech does not become unprotected merely because it resembles the latter. The Consti-
281
Page: Index Previous 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007