Cite as: 540 U. S. 93 (2003)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
Ante, at 205-206. The Court in Buckley recognized an informational interest that justified the imposition of a disclosure requirement on campaign-related speech. See 424 U. S., at 81. This interest is not implicated with regard to speech that is unrelated to an election campaign. Hence, it would be unconstitutional to impose such a disclosure requirement on non-election-related speech. And, as "the distinction between discussion of issues and candidates . . . may often dissolve in practical application," id., at 42, the only way to prevent the unjustified burdening of nonelection speech is to impose the regulation only on speech that is "unambiguously campaign related," id., at 81, i. e., speech using words of express advocacy. Hence, speech that uses words of express advocacy is protected under the same standard, strict scrutiny, as all other forms of speech. The only difference is that, under Buckley, there is a governmental interest supporting some regulation of those using words of express advocacy not present in other forms of speech.
* * *
The chilling endpoint of the Court's reasoning is not diffi-cult to foresee: outright regulation of the press. None of the rationales offered by the defendants, and none of the reasoning employed by the Court, exempts the press. "This is so because of the difficulty, and perhaps impossibility, of distinguishing, either as a matter of fact or constitutional law, media corporations from [nonmedia] corporations." Bellotti, 435 U. S., at 796 (Burger, C. J., concurring). Media companies can run procandidate editorials as easily as non-media corporations can pay for advertisements. Candidates can be just as grateful to media companies as they can be to corporations and unions. In terms of "the corrosive and distorting effects" of wealth accumulated by corporations that has "little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas," Austin, 494 U. S., at 660, there is no distinction between a media corporation and
283
Page: Index Previous 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007