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Opinion of Kennedy, J.
n. 50. Hence, " '[d]iscussions of those issues, and as well more positive efforts to influence public opinion on them, tend naturally and inexorably to exert some influence on voting at elections.' " Ibid. In glossing over Austin's opposite—and false—assumption that express advocacy is different, the majority ignores reality and elevates a distinction rejected by Buckley in clear terms.
Even after Buckley construed the statute then before the Court to reach only express advocacy, it invalidated limits on independent expenditures, observing that "[a]dvocacy of the election or defeat of candidates for federal office is no less entitled to protection under the First Amendment than the discussion of political policy generally or advocacy of the passage or defeat of legislation." 424 U. S., at 48. Austin defied this principle. It made the impermissible content-based judgment that commentary on candidates is less deserving of First Amendment protection than discussions of policy. In its haste to reaffirm Austin today, the majority refuses to confront this basic conflict between Austin and Buckley. It once more diminishes the First Amendment by ignoring its command that the Government has no power to dictate what topics its citizens may discuss. See Consolidated Edison Co. of N. Y. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 530 (1980).
Continued adherence to Austin, of course, cannot be justified by the corporate identity of the speaker. Not only does this argument fail to account for Bellotti, 435 U. S., at 777 ("The inherent worth of the speech in terms of its capacity for informing the public does not depend upon the identity of its source, whether corporation, association, union, or individual"), but Buckley itself warned that "[t]he First Amendment's protection against governmental abridgment of free expression cannot properly be made to depend on a person's financial ability to engage in public discussion." 424 U. S., at 49; see also id., at 48-49; Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92 (1972). The exemption for broadcast media
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