Cite as: 540 U. S. 93 (2003)
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
and officeholders is important because it allows the public to communicate with them on issues of common concern. Section 203's sweeping approach fails to take into account this significant free speech interest. Under any conventional definition of overbreadth, it fails to meet strict scrutiny standards. It forces electioneering communications sponsored by an environmental group to contend with faceless and nameless opponents and consign their broadcast, as the NRA well puts it, to a world where politicians who threaten the environment must be referred to as " 'He Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken.' " Reply Brief for Appellant NRA et al. in No. 02-1675 et al., p. 19.
In the example above, it makes no difference to § 203 or to the Court that the bill sponsors may have such well-known ideological biases that revealing their identity would provide essential instruction to citizens on whether the policy benefits them or their community. Nor does it make any difference that the names of the bill sponsors, perhaps through repetition in the news media, have become so synonymous with the proposal that referring to these politicians by name in an ad is the most effective way to communicate with the public. Section 203 is a comprehensive censor: On the pain of a felony offense, the ad must not refer to a candidate for federal office during the crucial weeks before an election.
We are supposed to find comfort in the knowledge that the ad is banned under § 203 only if it "is targeted to the relevant electorate," defined as communications that can be received by 50,000 or more persons in the candidate's district. See 2 U. S. C. § 434(f)(3)(C) (Supp. II). This Orwellian criterion, however, is analogous to a law, unconstitutional under any known First Amendment theory, that would allow a speaker to say anything he chooses, so long as his intended audience could not hear him. See Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U. S. 753, 762-765 (1972) (discussing the "First Amendment right to receive information and ideas" (internal quotation marks omitted)). A central purpose of issue ads is to
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